THE PRAYER OF THE HOLY SEVEN YOUTHS, FOR ONE WHO IS

ILL AND CANNOT SLEEP

Let us pray to the Lord.

Lord, have mercy.

O God, Great, Praised, Incomprehensible and Ineffable; Who didst fashion man
with Thy hands, taking dust from the earth, and Who didst honour him with Thine Image, O
Jesus Christ, Most-desired Name, together with Thy Father Who is without beginning, and
Thy Most-holy, Good, and Lifegiving Spirit: Do Thou manifest Thyself unto Thy servant,
N., and visit him (her) in soul and body, being entreated by our most-glorious Sovereign
Lady, the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary; by the holy Bodiless Powers of Heaven; by the
honourable and glorious Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John; by the holy, glorious and all-
praised Apostles; by the holy, glorious and right-victorious Martyrs; by our Fathers among
the Saints and ecumenical Teachers: Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and John
Chrysostom; by Athanasius and Cyril, Nicholas of Myra in Lycia, Cyril and Methodius,
Teachers of the Slavs, Spyridon the Wonderworker, and all the holy Hierarchs; by the holy
Apostle, Protomartyr and Archdeacon Stephen; by the holy glorious, Greatmartyrs: George
the Victorybearer, Demetrius the Myrrhgusher, Theodore Stratelates, and all the holy
Martyrs; by our Venerable and Godbearing Fathers: Anthony, Euthymius, Sabbas the
Sanctified, Theodosius (Founder of the Common Life), Onuphrius, Arsenius, Athanasius the
Athonite, and all the Venerable Ones; by the holy unmercenary Physicians: Cosmas and
Damian, Cyrus and John, Panteleimon and Hermalaeus, Samson and Diomedes, Thalelaeus
and Tryphon, and all the rest; by Saint(s), N. (of the Day); and by all Thy Saints; and grant
unto him (her) a peaceful sleep, the sleep of bodily health and salvation, and life and strength
of soul and body, as once Thou didst visit Abimelech, Thy favourite, in the house of
Agrippa, and gavest him the consolation of sleep, that he not see the Fall of Jerusalem, and
having nourished him with sleep, didst raise him up again in the twinkling of an eye, to the
glory of Thy goodness; and as Thou didst make manifest Thy holy glorious Seven Youths,
confessors and witnesses of Thine Appearance in the days of the Emperor Decius and the
Apostate, having sustained them in a cave for 372 years, as infants kept warm in their own
mother’s womb, none having endured corruption, to the praise and glory of Thy love for
mankind, and for a testimony and confession of our regeneration and the resurrection of all.
Do Thou Thyself, therefore, O Lover of Mankind and King, be present now also
with the infusion of Thy Holy Spirit, and visit Thy servant, N., and grant unto him (her)
health, strength and power, by Thy grace, for with Thee every action is good, and every gift
is perfect. For Thou art the Physician of our souls and bodies, and unto Thee do we send up
glory, thanksgiving and worship, together with Thy Father Who is without beginning, and
Thy Most-holy, Good, and Lifegiving Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

St. Tikhon’s Monastery, trans., The Great Book of Needs: Expanded and Supplemented, vol.
III (South Canaan, PA: St. Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 2002), 4–5.