Prayer book

A prayer book is a book containing prayers and perhaps devotional readings, for private or communal use, or in some cases, outlining the liturgy of religious services. Books containing mainly orders of religious services, or readings for them are termed "service books" or "liturgical books", and are thus not prayer-books in the strictest sense, but the term is often used very loosely. Breviaries are prayer books used in many Christian denominations by believers to pray at fixed prayer times the canonical hours seven times a day, a practice that has its roots in Psalm 118:164.[1] Throughout the year, and especially during certain seasons of the Christian liturgical kalendar such as Advent and Lent, many Christians pray a daily devotional, which contains a prayer for each day along with a reflection on a passage from the Christian Bible. A religion's scriptures might also be considered prayer books as well.

For other uses, see Prayer book (disambiguation).

The Agpeya is a breviary used in Oriental Orthodox Christianity to pray the canonical hours at fixed prayer times of the day.

The following are among the many books to which the term may loosely refer in various churches or religions, although in strict usage a prayer book is likely to mean a miscellaneous book of prayers as opposed to the standard service books as listed in the last group below:

Actual prayer books:

General

• Saint Augustine's Prayer Book, in the Episcopal Church of the United States
• Vatican Croatian Prayer Book, a Croatian vernacular prayer book
• Siddur, in Judaism

Breviaries

• Agpeya (Coptic Orthodox Christianity)
• Anglican Breviary (Anglican Christianity)
• For All the Saints (Lutheran Christianity)
• Roman Breviary (Roman Catholic Christianity)
• Shehimo (Indian Orthodox Christianity)
• Take Our Moments and Our Days: An Anabaptist Prayer Book (Mennonite Christianity)[2]

Service & liturgical books:

• Book of Common Prayer (BCP), first published in 1549 for the Church of England and has considerable literary influence in the English language
• Breviary or Missal, in Roman Catholicism
• Agenda (liturgy), in Lutheranism
• Common Worship, in Anglicanism
• Alternative Service Book (adopted in 1980), in the Church of England
• Directory of Public Worship, adopted in certain areas of the Church of England in the 17th century
• Book of Hours in Roman Catholicism, many of which have fine examples of Medieval art

See also

• List of Christian devotional literature

References

1. "Prayers of the Church". Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
2. Hollinger-Janzen, Lynda (26 March 2008). "Anabaptist prayer book globally embraced". Mennonite Mission Network. Retrieved 5 August 2020.