How to choose a place for prayer in a modern house or apartment?
The best option for family prayer is to equip a special prayer room. The easiest way to equip such a room is in a private house. In it you can almost always find a suitable room, attic or closet, in which you can build an iconostasis, hang lamps, chandeliers, put a lectern (best of all foldable) and a cabinet with liturgical books and accessories.
The layout of modern apartments also often allows for the presence of small closets or “blind” rooms without windows where you can create a prayer room. If the area of the apartment and the number of inhabitants in it allow, then a separate room can be allocated for prayer. Otherwise, it is possible to place a prayer corner in a room reserved for a study, dining room or kitchen. It is not customary to place home iconostases in bedrooms.
Prayer room in a private house of an Old Believer family
When building a home prayer corner, you should remember about compactness, since at home it is difficult to find a place for a floor candlestick. Instead, you can purchase a hanging chandelier with a lamp and holes for candles.
Traditions of home prayer: lighting candles, lamps and censing
If, as a rule, there are no problems with lighting candles and lamps at home, then there is some uncertainty with censing. Some Christians believe that the tradition of non-priestly censing with a hand censer katsei belongs exclusively to non-priesthood. This is wrong.
Katseya (hand censer)
Even before the church schism, home incense was considered not only an ordinary custom, but also an obligatory one. The collection of ancient household customs “ Domostroy ” indicates to family members:
And in the morning, when you get up, you also need to pray to God... in silence with humility, sing harmoniously and listen with attention, and cense to the images.
The collection of St. Kirill Belozersky speaks about cell, private prayer:
It is appropriate to sing the established canon in your cell and burn incense on the iconostasis, according to the custom of cathedral singing. If someone does not have the opportunity to burn incense as prescribed by the Charter, then at least once a day.
In a small enclosed space, the quality of incense is of particular importance. Some artificial and even natural flavors can cause choking.
House of Prayer
(MP3 file. Duration 11:20 min. Size 8.2 Mb)
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit!
The Orthodox service of Holy Monday is meaningful and multifaceted. On this day we prayerfully remember how the Lord warned the disciples about the coming Passion in Jerusalem, gave an answer to the Pharisees about His power and an explanation to the sons of Zebedee about primacy among the disciples, told parables about two sons and evil winegrowers, gave a prophecy about the end times and cursed the barren fig tree .
But historically, four days before Easter, the Lord probably did only two things: he drove the merchants out of the temple and cursed the barren fig tree. Consequently, our service does not so much retell all the events after the Lord’s entry into Jerusalem, but rather hints to members of the Church of the need to pray, stay awake, and always have a supply of virtues, awaiting the coming of the Heavenly Bridegroom.
What do these two very strange actions mean: the expulsion of the merchants from the temple and the curse of the barren fig tree?
After the solemn entry into Jerusalem, the Lord entered the temple, and, making a scourge from ropes, began to drive out sheep and oxen from there, overturned the tables of the money changers and asked that the sacrificial doves be taken out of the temple (see: Matt. 21: 12-13; Mark. 11:15–17; Luke 19:45–46; John 2:15–16). Forbidding the carrying of foreign things through the temple, He reminded those around him of the words spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations” [1] - and added from Himself: “but you have made it a den of thieves” (Mark 11: 17).
Nowadays, the zeal of Jesus Christ for the “house of prayer” is interpreted by some critics in a somewhat down-to-earth manner: since the Lord drove the sellers out of the temple, therefore, any activity of the old women behind the candle box in Orthodox churches falls under the ban on “trade.” Does this mean that in modern churches there should be no one and nothing except parishioners and parishioners who came to the “house of God” to pray?
The realities of the 1st century and the entire context of the Bible tell us that this is a rather narrow understanding of the Savior’s words. In ancient times, as in our modern churches, there were boxes for collecting donations. The Lord approved of the action of the poor widow, who put two mites into the temple treasury (see: Mark 12: 42–44). These treasuries in the Jerusalem Temple were guarded by special guards. Our employees, who are responsible for the candle box, often act as some kind of “guardians of order” and make sure that valuables are not stolen from churches: money, icons, relics, vessels.
Property relations and the acceptance of donations were and remain an integral part of the functioning of the temple. Healing a leprosy patient, considering the case of a corvan as property dedicated to God, or a case of offense against a brother, Jesus Christ not only did not forbid, but also encouraged his disciples to donate to the temple: “Be reconciled to your brother, and then come and bring your gift” ( Matthew 5:24; see also: Luke 5:14; Mark 7:11). Depending on the social status and material condition of the bringers, the sacrifices could vary from an ox to two turtle doves (see the book of Leviticus). At the same time, in ancient times priests gave an assessment of this or that sacrifice, and they kept the corresponding records in special books - so to speak, “behind the candle box.”
According to the book of Acts, the first Christians had common property (see: Acts 2: 45), from the funds of which specially appointed deacons provided assistance to the needy, widows and orphans (Acts 6: 1–6). It is quite possible that already in ancient times there were not only deacons, but also deaconesses (see: Rom. 16: 1), who helped provide assistance from the Church treasury and kept records of all expenses, so to speak, behind the “candle box”.
If the Lord does not forbid a person to bring donations to the temple and even praises the woman who personally spent ointment worth 300 denarii on Him (see: Mark 14: 4-6), then the problem is not that we have in the vestibules temples collect donations for notes and candles, and for something more. Jesus Christ first of all contrasts the “house of prayer” with the “house of trade” (John 2:16), accusing the Jews of making the “house of prayer” a “den of thieves” (Luke 19:46).
The concept of “house of prayer” in this context goes back to the Hebrew expression “beit tefilah” (בֵּית־תְּפִלָּה – Is. 56:7). Tefilah (תְּפִלָּה) is, first of all, prayer, petition, and lamentation. David cried for himself: “Hear, O God, my cry, hearken to my prayer!” (Ps. 60:1). Through the prophet Isaiah, the Lord told King Hezekiah that He heard his prayer and “saw his tears” (Is. 38:5). Tefillah is also the intercession of a king or prophet before God for the people (see: Isa. 37: 4; Jer. 7: 16, 11: 14); this is the blessing of the people by the priests (see: 2 Chron. 30:27); this is a prayer of repentance (see: Dan. 9: 3; Neh. 1: 6).
When God appeared to Solomon at night after the consecration of the first Jerusalem temple, he said to him: “I heard your prayer and chose this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. If I shut up the heavens and there is no rain, and if I command the locusts to devour the earth, or if I send a pestilence among my people, and my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land” (2 Chron. 7: 12–14).
From these words it is clear that forgiveness of sins and healing of the earth does not come automatically as a reward for enduring tribulations. No, those who suffer must humble themselves, pray and turn from their evil ways.
On behalf of God, the prophet Isaiah reproaches people for mechanically pronouncing the words of prayers, while the hearts of those who come to the temple are occupied with extraneous things. “Their fear before Me became simply a learned commandment” (Isa. 29:13). The Lord devalues formal prayer: “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me” (Mark 7:6). Consequently, the desolation of the “house of prayer” begins with the desolation of the soul of the person praying.
A “house of prayer” is not only a temple building[2], but also any place where believers gather to ask God for something from the depths of their hearts with one mouth[3]. For where two or three are gathered in the name of Christ, there He is in the midst of them (see: Matt. 18:20). Jesus told the Samaritan woman that “you will not worship the Father in Jerusalem... but the time will come, and has already come, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” (John 4: 21, 23). The Apostle Paul adds that from now on we, who have accepted the grace of baptism, are “the temple of the living God” (2 Cor. 6:16) and our bodies are “the temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 6:19). “For you have tasted that the Lord is good,” wrote the Apostle Peter. “As you come to Him, a living stone, rejected by men, but chosen and precious by God, you also, like living stones, are being built up into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood” (1 Pet. 2:3-5). Therefore, we, as stones of the living house of God, as part of the common body of the Church, must “offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:5).
We dare add that the words of the Savior: “Do not make a house of prayer a den of thieves” apply not only to stone churches and not only to the clergy. According to the prophet Jeremiah, the house of God becomes a “den of thieves” when the people entering it do not have a pure heart. “Do not trust in deceptive words,” says Jeremiah, “here is the temple of the Lord”... you trust in deceptive words that will not benefit you... you steal, kill and commit adultery, and swear lies and burn incense to Baal, and follow after others gods whom you do not know, and then come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, “We are saved,” so that from now on you will do all these abominations” (Jer. 7: 4-11).
So, a “den of thieves” can be not only a place where temple powers are abused, but also any person in whose soul the passions of envy, deceit, hypocrisy and resentment against his brother have become masters. The Lord directly says to such people: first, “ be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:24). God will not accept our cry for sins if each of us does not forgive our brother “from the heart” for his sins (see: Matt. 18: 35; 6: 14–15). But it will be even worse with those who have already been invited to the wedding feast of the Heavenly Bridegroom, and they, neglecting this, went to their field or to trade (see: Matt. 22: 5). Such people, truly, exchanged their souls for mammon and made their “house of prayer” a “house of trade.”
The barren fig tree is not to blame for the fact that there was no fruit on it in early spring (see: Mark 11:13). But its instant drying up at the word of the Lord is a lesson for us. With its lush external green appearance, the fig tree promised fruits, but apart from some leaves it contained nothing. Likewise, those who have only the outward appearance of executors of the Law, but do not bear the fruits of faith, can be dried up by the Lord in the blink of an eye.
Let, dear fathers, brothers and sisters, the examples of the curse of the fig tree and the expulsion of the merchants from the temple be a warning for us. Those who do not keep their baptismal clothes white, who are pious only in appearance, but their faith does not bear fruit, it is in vain for them to repeat the words: “Here is the temple of the Lord.” There is no point in blaming others and the clergy and saying that I can’t pray in such and such a church. In every place God hears prayer, crying about sins from the depths of the heart. But if anyone, going to the “house of God,” still harbors a grudge against his neighbor, he has already made his soul a “den of thieves.”
Therefore let us watch over our souls and pray. Let us stock up on the oil of virtues, adjust the wick in the lamps of faith and go out to meet the Bridegroom of the Bridal Chamber. Let us repeat in the house of prayer of our soul the chant of Holy Week: “I see Your chamber, my Savior, adorned, and I have no clothes, but the stench is everywhere: enlighten the robe of my soul, O Light-Giver, and save me.”[4]
Amen.
[1] “And the sons of foreigners who have joined themselves to the Lord to serve Him and to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants, all those who keep the Sabbath from desecrating it and hold fast My covenant, I will bring to My holy mountain and make them glad in My house of prayer ; Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices [shall be] acceptable on My altar, for My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations ” (Isa. 56:6–7).
[2] The expression “house of God” in Holy Scripture is first mentioned in relation to Jacob’s vision of the mysterious ladder, and not in relation to the specific temple building (see: Gen. 28: 17).
[3] In Acts. 16:13 The “house of prayer” is not called the Jerusalem temple, but the synagogue.
[4] Exapostilarium at the Matins service of Holy Monday.
