The prayer for the unbaptized is based on an incident that occurred in Optina Hermitage. One day, a student turned to the Optina Elder Leonid (in the schema Leo, who died in 1841) in inconsolable grief over his deceased suicidal father, asking whether and how he could pray for him. To which the elder replied: Submit both yourself and the fate of your parent to the will of the Lord, wise and almighty. Pray to the Most Good Creator, thereby fulfilling the duty of love and filial duties, according to the spirit of the virtuous and wise:

Seek, O Lord, the lost soul of my father: if possible, have mercy! Your destinies are unsearchable. Do not make this my prayer a sin for me. But Thy holy will be done.

With this prayer you can pray at home about relatives who arbitrarily took their own lives, but given the certain spiritual danger described earlier, for committing home prayer You must definitely take a blessing from the priest.

From the patristic heritage there are known cases when, through the intense prayer of loved ones, the fate of the souls of suicides was alleviated, but in order to achieve this, one must perform a feat of prayer.

Following the example of this prayer, you can pray for the unbaptized (those who have passed into eternal life unenlightened by the Orthodox faith), as well as those who have been baptized, but have apostatized from the faith (those who have departed into eternal life in apostasy from the Holy Orthodox Church).

In this instruction for every Christian who is in a similar position, there is a lot of comfort, calming the soul in surrendering oneself and the deceased to the will of God, always good and wise. And the fact that the unbaptized can receive some relief through prayer is known from the conversation of the Monk Macarius of Egypt with the skull of a pagan priest. The monk prayed a lot for the departed and therefore wanted to know the effect of his prayers. When you pray for the dead, the skull answered, “we feel some kind of consolation.” This incident gives us hope that our prayers for the unfortunate who died unbaptized will bring them some consolation. We should not forget about such an effective means of alleviating the fate of the dead as alms, which in these cases acquires special significance.

It is a great sin not to accept the Savior and to reject the Orthodox faith, but the merciful Lord allowed one of His saints to intercede before Him for the souls of the non-Orthodox deceased. This saint is the martyr Uar, who accepted death for Christ in 307. Once, in a vision of blessed Cleopatra, the saint told her that for her good deeds he begged God to forgive the sins of all her deceased pagan relatives. Since then, Orthodox Christians have turned to the martyr Uar in prayer to intercede with the Lord for their relatives and friends who died not baptized into the Orthodox faith.

Prayer to the holy martyr Huar

Oh, venerable saint of the martyr Uara, we kindle with zeal for the Lord Christ, you confessed the Heavenly King before the tormentor, and for Him you suffered zealously, and now the Church honors you, as you are glorified by the Lord Christ with the glory of Heaven, Who has given you grace have great boldness towards Him, and now you stand before Him with the Angels, and in the Highest Rejoices, and clearly see the Holy Trinity, and enjoy the light of the Infinite Radiance, remembering our relatives in languor, who died in wickedness, accept our petition, and like Cleopatrine, you freed the unfaithful race from eternal torment with Your prayers So remember those who were buried against God, who died unbaptized, trying to ask for deliverance from eternal darkness, so that with one mouth and one heart we may praise the Most Merciful Creator forever and ever. Amen.

Today, there are many different debates about whether it is possible to pray for the health of an unbaptized person. Some argue in this regard that it is absolutely impossible to ask the Lord for such people. This is justified by the fact that a person who has not been baptized puts his person against church canons, rejecting the shrine of God’s Temple.

Others say that you can ask God even for lost sheep, so he will definitely hear your prayer for unbaptized people.

Judging by the numerous discussions of clergy on this topic, we can safely draw a conclusion. To the question, is it possible to read a prayer for unbaptized children or adults? You can answer this way: of course it is possible, why not?

Church sources even contain real prayers for unbaptized people. In such prayers, people turn to God for the forgiveness of sinners and the opportunity to return them to the bosom of the divine temple.

For the deceased unbaptized - prayers to the martyr Uar

If you want to reach out to the Lord and ask for protection for a person who has not undergone the Sacrament of baptism, then it is better to turn to the patrons of the lost. One of such patrons is considered to be the holy righteous man Uar. During his lifetime, this Saint prayed for the repose of the unbaptized for the protection of the Lord.

Saint Huar is addressed to:

for the living lost people;

for children who have not been baptized;

for unborn babies;

for an unbaptized deceased baby who did not have time to receive the Sacrament;

for dead lost people.

O holy martyr Uare, the venerable one, we kindle with zeal for the Lord Christ, you confessed the Heavenly King before the tormentor, and now the Church honors you, as glorified by the Lord Christ with the glory of Heaven, Who has given you the grace of great boldness towards Him, and now you stand before Him with the Angels, and in the highest you rejoice, and see clearly the Holy Trinity, and enjoy the light of the Beginning Radiance: remember also our relatives in languor, who died in wickedness, accept our petition, and like Cleopatrine, the unfaithful generation through your prayers from eternal torment You have freed, so remember those who were buried against God, who died unbaptized (names), trying to ask for deliverance from eternal darkness, so that with one mouth and one heart we may praise the Most Merciful Creator forever and ever. Amen

Prayer for the unbaptized departed to the Lord

Many people often wonder: “who can pray for the souls of dead people who did not accept Orthodox baptism? The clergy say that you can pray not only to God, but also to the Saints. Remember that sincere prayers from a pure heart will definitely reach the addressee. Every person on the planet has the right to the protection of the Almighty and his forgiveness.

It is a great tragedy if a person dies without being baptized. This can't be fixed. And according to church laws, it is impossible to perform a funeral service for him in church or commemorate him at the Liturgy. But loved ones always have the right to personal prayer for the unbaptized dead. What's the best way to do this?

What happens after death

If a person completely rejected the Lord during his lifetime, there is no need to pray for him too hard. There were cases when the dead appeared and asked not to pray for them. In any case, talk to the priest, he will advise what to do in a particular situation. But it happens that people respect the faith, show a desire to be baptized, but simply do not have time to do so. Then you can and should pray.

Each soul after death goes to a private trial, which will take place on the 40th day after death. It is believed that prayers for the unbaptized dead help the soul of the deceased go through aerial ordeals and ways to even alleviate his fate. On the very day of death you can:

• read 17 kathisma - psalms and necessary prayers about repose;
• perform the secular rite of lithium at the cemetery;
• light a candle in the temple and pray.

It is not possible to order a memorial service or church memorial. This is done because during his lifetime the person himself did not express a desire to belong to the Church and rejected God.

What other prayers can you read?

There is veneration of the martyr Huar, who supposedly had the grace to pray for the unbaptized. There was even a service compiled for him, only it is non-canonical, that is, it is not officially recognized by the church. Church prayer about the unbaptized deceased, although some priests are now allowed (for a fee), violates all canons. Whether or not to read the canon for the dead to the martyr Uar is a personal matter for everyone.

The Holy Fathers also advise giving alms for those who died without repentance, without accepting Christ.

If a baby dies

Great grief is the loss of a small child. But the Holy Church believes that all babies end up in heaven. This is written about in the Gospel. Prayer for unbaptized babies is also done privately, as well as about other people who have not become members of the Church. Children, although they do not have conscious bad deeds, still bear the mark original sin Adam and Eve. This is why the Church considers it necessary to baptize young children.

It may seem unfair that the child did not know life. But we don’t know what his fate would have been like. It is believed that the Lord takes people to Himself in order to protect a person from a more terrible disaster, this also applies to children. We must believe in the goodness of God, not despair and give thanks for everything, although this can be difficult.

Prayer of Leo Optinsky for those who died unbaptized

“Have mercy, O Lord, on the soul of Your servant (name), who passed into eternal life without Holy Baptism. Your destinies are unsearchable. Do not make this my prayer a sin for me. But Thy holy will be done."

It is good to pray to the Mother of God, reading the rosary“Virgin Mother of God, rejoice...” (as much as strength allows: from 30 to 150 times a day). At the beginning and at the end of this rule, one must ask the Mother of God to help the soul of the deceased.

Prayer for the unbaptized dead was last modified: July 7th, 2017 by Bogolub

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With God, everyone is alive—every Christian knows this. This means that we need to pray not only for the living, but also for the dead. But why then don’t the Church commemorate the unbaptized? Who is the martyr Uar and why do they pray to him for Gentiles?

As evidenced life experience, for many, the path to the temple begins after encountering illness, sorrow and even the loss of relatives. When a loved one is no longer around, the question arises: “What can I do for him?” How to survive the pain of loss?

Answers and comfort can truly be found in church. After all, every Christian believes that life does not end with earthly boundaries. After physical death the human soul does not cease to exist. And after the second coming of Christ, it will be determined exactly what each person deserves. The Kingdom of Heaven awaits some, while pitch darkness awaits others.

But no one knows when Christ will come to earth in glory to judge everyone. Until this time, you can still influence the final decision. How? Prayers for the departed.

But what these prayers will look like depends on what kind of life the deceased spent on earth.

Prayer for the Orthodox dead

If the deceased believed in God, was not formally baptized, and began the Sacraments, then such a person can safely be called a member of the Church and commemorated not only in home prayer, but also in church.

You can light candles and submit notes for the proskomedia - a special part of the Liturgy, during which for each person commemorated, a particle is taken out from the prosphora, which will be immersed in the Communion cup under the words of prayer:

Wash away, Lord, the sins here remembered by Thy Honest Blood and the prayers of Thy Saints.

It is also customary to perform special memorial services for the deceased Orthodox Christians - memorial services. At such services, they usually write lists of names for commemoration and bring all kinds of products - each according to their capabilities.

That is, in addition to prayer, you also perform alms, which is considered one of the types of “help” for the dead.

And of course, no one canceled home, "cell" prayer for the departed:

1. Reading the Psalter of Repose.
2. Akathist for the one who died (40 days after death and the same number before the anniversary).
3. All kinds of prayers - for every deceased person, widows and widowers, children for parents and vice versa, etc.

IN Orthodox prayer book you will see many different prayer texts. It is better to consult a priest about what is more suitable in your case. The main thing is not volume and quantity, but sincerity and burning of the heart. God will hear a few words faster, but from the bottom of my heart, with deep hope for God’s response, than long prayers that we have not experienced either in our hearts or in our minds.

Prayer for the unbaptized and people of other faiths is not offered by the Church

If everything is more or less clear with the commemoration of the deceased Orthodox, then the answer to the question “How to pray for the unbaptized and people of other faiths?” doesn't look as transparent.

There is no funeral service for such people Orthodox priests, even if relatives really insist. It is just as impossible to submit notes for those who died unbaptized as for those of other faiths. Why? Because these people during their lifetime did not want to become Orthodox - members of the Orthodox Church. They were not baptized and, accordingly, did not participate in the Sacraments.

But God never acts by force, does not force anyone to do anything. So can the Church perform a funeral service according to Orthodox customs one who did not belong to Her during life? After all, it will be violence! Therefore, in Orthodoxy, it is not customary for the unbaptized to have a funeral service in our churches; notes are not given for them for church commemoration and, accordingly, a conciliar prayer for the unbaptized is not heard.

Therefore, no matter how painful it may sound for family, friends and loved ones, they will also not be able to remember names in notes dear people who were baptized in Catholicism or Protestantism, not to mention Muslims, Buddhists and representatives of other movements who do not believe in the Christian God at all.

If the dead did not believe in God, then the Church cannot forcibly ask the Lord to accept these people to Himself, to settle them in heavenly abodes together with the righteous.

Cell prayer of Leo Optina

But relatives or friends can offer personal prayer for the unbaptized and those of other faiths. How? With love and trust in God. It is worth asking the Lord to show mercy to people who have never learned the true meaning of life, who are lost in the darkness of unbelief.

Optinsky Elder Leo offered cell prayer for the dead outside Orthodoxy. The text of this petition is filled with hope for God’s will:

Seek, O Lord, the lost soul of my father: if it is possible, have mercy. Your destinies are unsearchable. Do not make this my prayer a sin, but Thy holy will be done.

They pray to Saint War for the unbaptized: truth or myth?

IN Lately The prayer to the martyr Uar for the unbaptized and even suicides also gained particular popularity.

Its adherents believe that supposedly Saint Uar, to whom the pious Christian Cleopatra zealously prayed for her dead pagan relatives, begged the Lord for the salvation of the departed. But where is the truth and where is fiction? Let's try to figure it out.

- not at all fictional character. He was a warrior from the time of Emperor Maximin - one of the famous persecutors of Christianity - and a secret Christian. Therefore, at night he visited the imprisoned Christians. One day he visited seven teachers and turned to them with a request to pray for him, since he was not yet so firm in faith as to confess Christ before his martyrdom.

Through a short time After this, one of the teachers fell ill and died. Then the martyr Uar decided to “replace” him and suffer with the rest. The saint died from severe torture, but never renounced God.

One pious widow, seeing his faith and suffering, decided to hide the relics of the martyr in her home. She and her son repeatedly prayed to the saint.

When the persecution of Christians stopped, she decided to return from Egypt to Palestine. In order to take the relics of the saint with her, she said that these were the remains of her husband, who was a military leader. So she managed to transport the holy relics and place them in the same place where the tomb of her ancestors was.

Together with her son, Cleopatra prayed every day at the tomb. Other Christians followed her. Through the prayers of the martyr Uar, they received healing and relief from illnesses.

It is necessary to build a temple for the saint - the widow conceived and began to implement her plan. Her son John helped her in everything. Together with the bishops and the congregation of Christians, they transferred the remains of the righteous man to new tomb, near which Cleopatra fervently prayed for herself and her son. She dreamed of the boy becoming a warrior. But she asked the martyr Uar to help her son choose a path in life.

After this, John, who was already 17, died suddenly of a fever.

The woman was in complete despair and even began to grumble against the martyr - how could he allow this to happen? But a saint appeared to her and said that John really got the best way. If on earth he had to become a warrior and serve the earthly king, then in the Kingdom of God he serves the Heavenly King. The happy son asked his mother not to suffer, because he, together with the Angels, served the Lord.

After this, Cleopatra buried her son next to the saint, distributed her property and prayed all her time in the built temple, near the relics of the martyr Huar.

As we see, in the life of the saint there is not a single word that the widow prayed for her pagan relatives. She prayed only for her son. But he was by no means a pagan. If John, together with his mother, built a temple for the saint and prayed at the relics, then could he be an unbeliever?

Unfortunately, beautiful story the fact that Saint Huar begged for Cleopatra’s relatives, who were pagans and during their lifetime chose the path of renunciation of God, remains just a story that inspires prayer for the unbaptized.

Is it possible to “beg” an unbaptized person?

If Saint Uar did not beg the pagans, then how should we approach prayer for the unbaptized and people of other faiths? Is there any point at all in praying for those who did not strive for God during their lifetime?

Let's pay attention to two nuances:

1. God gave every person free will. And if someone does not believe in God and does not want to be with Him after death, then the Lord does not act by force. He respects a person's choice, no matter what Negative consequences he had neither.
2. Even in the prayer itself to the martyr Uar it is said that it weakens the eternal torment of the unbaptized, but does not “guarantee” him paradise.

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1) Questions are answered by clergy and teachers of the Kazan Theological Seminary.

About prayer for the unbaptized.

Commemoration of unbaptized people is not performed at Proskomedia and public worship.

Unfortunately, very often people come to church and, with tears in their eyes, ask if it is possible to remember deceased unbaptized relatives. The Church does not pray for the unbaptized, since these people did not enter the saving fence of the Church during their lives. Unbaptized people are dead members, cut off from the whole body of the Church. One can only regret them, but it is no longer possible to cure them.

We often hear reproaches that the Church acts cruelly towards the unbaptized dead, but among them there are very good and kind people. So what was stopping you? good people become members of the Church? Probably everyone had their reasons, but at the heart of it all lies a lack of faith in God. And this disbelief, the soul took with it to afterlife, where it no longer acquires new qualities.

At the same time, the Church does not forbid personal, home prayer for loved ones who died unbaptized, but only home prayer! Naturally, the person praying needs to be a baptized Orthodox himself and to pray for an unbaptized relative, take a blessing from the priest.

The prayer for the unbaptized is based on an incident that occurred in Optina Hermitage. One day a student approached the Opinsky elder Leonid (+1841) with the question of whether it was possible to pray for his deceased father who committed suicide, and how. To which the elder replied: “Commit both yourself and the fate of your parent to the will of the Lord, all-wise and all-powerful. Pray to the Most Good Creator, thereby fulfilling the duty of love and the duties of a filial, virtuous and wise in spirit like this: “Seek, Lord, the lost soul of my father: If possible, have mercy! Your destinies are unsearchable. Do not make this my prayer a sin for me. But Thy holy will be done." Following the example of this prayer, you can pray for the unbaptized, as well as for the non-Orthodox or baptized, but apostatized from the faith.

The fact that the unbaptized can receive some relief through prayer is known from the life of St. Macarius of Egypt. One day, Saint Macarius, having encountered the skull of a dead pagan priest in the desert, entered into a conversation with him. The monk prayed a lot for the dead and therefore wanted to know the effect of prayers. “When you pray for the dead,” the skull answered, “we feel some kind of consolation.” This incident gives us hope that our prayers for the unfortunate who died unbaptized will bring them some consolation.

We should not forget about such an effective means of alleviating the fate of the dead as alms, which in these cases acquires special significance.

The merciful Lord allowed one of His saints to intercede before Him for the souls of the departed non-Orthodox. This saint is the martyr Uar, who accepted death for Christ in 307. Once, in a vision of blessed Cleopatra, the saint told her that for her good deeds he begged God to forgive the sins of all her deceased pagan relatives. Since then, Orthodox Christians have turned to the martyr Uar in prayer to intercede with the Lord for their relatives and friends who died unbaptized into the Orthodox faith.

Prayer to the holy martyr Huar

O holy martyr Uare, venerable, we kindle with zeal for the Lord Christ, you confessed the Heavenly King before the tormentor, and for Him you suffered zealously, and now the Church honors you, as glorified by the Lord Christ with the glory of Heaven, Who has given you the grace of great boldness towards Him, and now you stand before Him with the Angels, and rejoice in the Highest, and see clearly the Holy Trinity, and enjoy the light of the Beginning Radiance, remember also our relatives' yearning, who died in wickedness, accept our petition, and like Cleopatrine, you freed the unfaithful race from eternal torment by Your prayers , so remember those who were buried in opposition to God, who died unbaptized, striving to ask for deliverance from eternal darkness, so that with one mouth and one heart we may all praise the Most Merciful Creator forever and ever. Amen.

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2) Priest Valentin Ulyakhin, Doctor of Economics, has been serving in the Church of the Holy Trinity on Pyatnitskaya for many years. This temple is also notable for the fact that every week a prayer service to St. martyr Uaru - prayers are offered to the Lord for those dearest who died unbaptized. It is difficult to imagine how heavy the burden of human grief falls on the priest’s shoulders. But Father Valentin has a kind, encouraging word for everyone.

In the Holy Trinity Church on Pyatnitskaya Street in Moscow there is an icon of the martyr Uar, where every Saturday they pray for relief of the fate of the unbaptized dead, people come from afar, from the outskirts of vast Russia, because this is the only temple in Moscow where it is performed with the blessing His Holiness Patriarch Prayer service to the martyr Uar. There is a canon to the martyr Uar, there are prayers that have their own history. There are people who doubt the possibility of praying for the unbaptized. Moreover, sometimes you can find in the press the opinion that you should under no circumstances pray for the unbaptized. From a formal point of view, we cannot and should not pray for the unbaptized; we cannot perform a funeral service, or commemorate them at memorial services, and under no circumstances commemorate them at a proskomedia. But surprisingly, in the Holy Tradition the life of the martyr Uar gives, nevertheless, such an opportunity to pray to Uar for the unbaptized.

The relics of Huar were found by a certain lady Cleopatra, who built a temple over his relics and prayed for her unbaptized deceased son and the Lord Himself came to her along with Uar, thus, on a mystical level, it was confirmed that her prayer reached the Lord, and the Lord eased the fate of her unbaptized son.

They often come to Trinity Church to pray for the unbaptized, and they pray with tears. Sometimes you ask, “You pray with such zeal, do you have any consolation after this prayer?” And many people tell me that in a thin light sleep the souls of the unbaptized come, communicate with their relatives, ask them to pray and say that the prayer is heard by God, that they feel better. And this is precisely what the canon to the martyr Uar is about, that it is possible to alleviate the lot of the unbaptized and this is confirmed by practice. There were cases when they didn’t know whether a person was baptized or not, and then the soul came and reported that baptism had taken place and it was possible to perform the funeral service according to the rules. This applied in particular to many soldiers who died and were thought to be unbaptized. But they were baptized before the war by monks who lived secretly in Soviet Russia during those years. And when they questioned distant relatives, it actually turned out that the person had been baptized. Such cases also happen repeatedly.

When people of different classes, different ranks gather, they are all equal in one thing - in their love for those who gave them life. And turning to Christ, accepting the sacrament of the Church, preparing for this sacrament, and some for the first time cross the threshold of the temple to pray for their unbaptized relatives, they may never have come if the Lord, through his martyr Uar, had not called them. And so they go to the temple and in prayer to Uaru they open their souls, they come to know the love of God, they feel better. And they continue on their arduous path to God, they become churchgoers. And now the parish of the Trinity Church on Pyatnitskaya Street consists of ¾ of those people who began their churching with a prayer to the martyr Uar for the unbaptized. This confirms that the Lord Himself blesses. Indeed, canonically we cannot pray, but Holy Tradition allowed this. A Sacred Tradition has no less, and even greater, significance than the Holy Scriptures. Orthodox Christians accept Holy Tradition as their source Holy Scripture. And the practice of prayers to the martyr Uar confirms that this prayer is saving, saving, first of all, for the living and those who cross the threshold of the temple. And what leads them is love, love for their relatives. But God is love, which means God leads them, which means the Lord himself blesses them.
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