Various prayers in Christianity have accumulated a lot over a couple of millennia. Not all of them are understandable to modern people. For example, the “Detention” prayer, reviews of which are most often found on thematic Christian forums, raises a lot of questions from people who do not attend church services very often and are poorly versed in various religious subtleties.
What is this?
The texts of various prayers are not given to people from above, they are compiled and written down. Of course, not a single prayer rule arises just like that, from scratch. All texts reflect the most important, priority needs of people living at the time the prayer was composed.
The prayer "Detention", reviews of priests about which are very ambiguous, appeared in collections in the middle of the century before last in an incomprehensible way. The author of the first prayer rule compiled in thiskey, in other words, the founder of this genre in religious texts is considered to be a certain Pansophius of Athos.
The prayer itself is a text that helps resist evil and hold it back.
What is the essence of prayer?
The essence of prayer and its purpose can be explained in just a couple of words - the detention of the devil. Of course, this definition should not be taken literally. This is not about mysticism, not about the appearance of Lucifer in this world or other similar things.
It's about fighting the devil that lives inside every person. About obstructing the ordinary evil that people face every day and are so used to it that they no longer notice. Prayer is directed against evil in society in all its aspects. Against mass "insanity", riots and pogroms, wars and revolutions. Against the anger in the soul of every person. Against everything dark that exists both in each individual and in society as a whole.
Who was Pansofiy Athos?
There is no answer to this question. The name of this person appeared as if from non-existence and is associated only with the prayers of the "Detention". There is not a single mention of him in any of the sources, neither written, nor oral, nor any other.
Due to the fact that immediately after its appearance, the “Detention” prayer, reviews of which are found everywhere, became incredibly popular, and parishioners began to ask questions about why it was not read during worship, the church is very took seriously everything related to this text.
However, no traces of a person named Pansofiy Athos could be found. But despite this, the clergy were in no hurry to declare the prayer a fake for a spiritual text. Analysis of the text by theologians and philosophers revealed some stylistic connection with the Old Testament. This suggests that perhaps the words of prayer are an adaptation of some ancient texts that arose earlier than Christianity.
How to get the opinion of priests?
The prayer "Detention" reviews of priests collects extremely contradictory, mostly very negative. In the modern world, thanks to developed communications, means of communication and, of course, the availability of virtual space, in order to find out the opinion of a church minister, it is not at all necessary to come to the temple.
Many churches have their own portals and websites where you can not only find out the exact schedule of the temple, but also ask priests questions. For example, the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity on Sparrow Hills, which is popular among believers living in the capital, has such a site. Of course, other churches also have their own information resources. Although Orthodoxy in this matter lags far behind Western confessions, religious ones still exist and function.
Naturally, if there is an opportunity to come to the temple and talk with the priest for real, asking all the exciting questions, then this is exactly what you should do.
What are the priests saying?
Prayer "Detention" responses from clergy causes not only negative andcontradictory, but also in some ways strange. Most priests see in this prayer:
- obscurantism;
- darkness;
- paganism;
- enchantment;
- magic rituality and so on.
At the same time, there is no official church ban on this text and on those prayers that are pronounced on its basis in your own words. That is, the supreme clergy have been silent on this issue for more than a hundred years. The theme of prayer itself does not contradict Christian dogma in anything.
What is wrong with this prayer?
Although the prayer "Detention" reviews from the ministers of the church and receives mostly very unflattering, the priests talk about it a lot and often. The reason for considering the text magical is the phrase that precedes the content of the prayer. In a version adapted to modern pronunciation, it sounds like this: “The power of these prayers lies in their mystery from the eyes and ears of people. Its strength is in its secret action.”
Priests claim that this characteristic describes divination, not prayer. The arguments given are that the strength of Orthodox prayers is in humility, repentance, love for one's neighbors and the Lord, and the absence of a thirst for revenge on those who do evil.
However, the introduction to the text, known as the "Detention" prayer, people's reviews of which are completely opposite to the opinions of the clergy, does not contradict the ideas about the strengths of "official chants". As for hiding from the sight and hearing of others,priests never forbade praying silently in churches. That is, without making your prayer public. Besides, what is prayer? This is a conversation between a person and the Lord, the sacrament of surrendering oneself to God.
There is one more ambiguity. In Christianity, rituals are called sacraments, for example, baptism, weddings, and others. Since there is no clarity in the question of the origin of the text, it is quite possible to assume that under the concept of "concealment" it is not about secrecy, but about ritualism.
Another thesis often found in reviews says that in the text a person indicates to the Lord how to act. A very controversial understanding, again, since in any prayer a person says or means "give me, Lord." The options are different - protect, save, have mercy, reason and so on. But they have the same meaning and it can be expressed by the verb "do". Isn't that an indication?
Why is this prayer popular? Priests' opinions
The clergy mostly explain the popularity of various versions of the texts of "Detention" with a lack of spirituality, the presence of superstitions, and various survivals. Belief in the supernatural is also explained.
According to the workers of Orthodox churches, people do not quite understand what the power of prayer is, due to which it helps. Miracles are created not at all by spoken words, but by the Lord, to whom a person turns with absolute faith in his heart. The texts themselves do not have much meaning, which is why the church has never condemned prayers uttered by their ownwords.
Such a position, of course, is indisputable, but the question arises, what then is the wrongness of "Detention", if verbal formulations do not matter to the Lord? As a rule, the clergy do not clearly answer such questions.
What are people's real opinions?
Real reviews of the "Detention" prayer are completely devoid of theoretical reasoning, analysis of the meaning of individual words and other similar nuances.
As a rule, people share what is essential and truly important to them. They talk about how they read the prayer, where, how many times, which version of the texts they used. They share their opinions about whether this prayer helped in any way or not. Those who read the prayer "Detention" do not leave lengthy and wordy reviews. They write about how they found out about the existence of such texts, why they became interested in them.
There are no negative responses or arguments about “wrongness” and “magical orientation” among the statements of ordinary people. The vast majority of reviews emphasize that the “Detention” prayer is very effective, effective. "Strong prayer" - reviews with such an assessment are almost universal, this phrase is also used in comments on social networks.
Why is prayer in demand?
Explaining the popularity of prayer with belief in magic and the similarity of the text with spells is clearly not enough to understand what makes it so popular. Help you understand whythe prayer "Detention" has been popular for more than a century, reviews. Whom she helped, they rush to share with others. And can there be stronger arguments for the benefit of something than the opinion of a person who has tried the subject in question? People trust those who have already tried, any sales or advertising specialist will tell you about it.
As an illustrative example, you can use something that is far from religious issues, but understandable to all people, regardless of their age or education, for example, a product such as instant coffee. No matter how many elegant packaging of a particular brand is shown on TV, after trying it once and making sure that the product is not of very high quality, people will not buy it again. Moreover, they will tell their friends, and they will not buy either. And, of course, on the contrary, having bought an unknown brand and realizing that the coffee in this jar is excellent, people begin to praise it and recommend it to friends.
Nothing different from coffee from the above example prayer "Detention". “A very strong prayer” - reviews with this phrase are a recommendation that people listen to and begin to read the text themselves. And of course, they also leave their feedback, which other people are already listening to.
This is probably the whole secret of such a long-term popularity and demand for the texts of the Detention prayer - that it really helps people.
How to read it?
There are no rules for reading this prayer, however, as well as the official canonical text. Those who have prayed this way recommend doing so.daily, before going outside or doing household chores.
There are also recommendations that you need to read it not only once a day, but also repeat it to yourself when you feel the presence of evil. There is nothing mystical about this advice. The feeling of the presence of evil can be watching a drunken aggressive boor who offends someone. It could be the nervousness of a long line at the only open checkout in a supermarket, or something else, such as an internal buildup of irritation.
What could be the text of this prayer?
Anyone can be prayer "Detention" from all evil. Feedback from people who practice it cite completely different versions of texts as an example. Moreover, in fact, any request to the Almighty to stop evil and protect from it is a prayer of "Detention".
The text printed in the prayer books of 1848 is not suitable for a modern person for several reasons. It is filled with obsolete variants of words, completely incomprehensible now and difficult to pronounce - this is the main reason. The text is very long and filled with quotations from the Old Testament, references to its chapters. It is extremely difficult to remember this. Accordingly, when reading it, a situation will inevitably arise in which a person will not give himself up to prayer and its essence, his mind will remain filled with thoughts about whether something is said correctly and whether some line is forgotten. And as the clergy say, nothing vain should distract a person from prayer.
Therefore,pronounce it in your own words and as simply as possible. Adapted text example:
“Merciful Lord! Through the lips of your servants, you maintained the faith in the hearts of your people, while the troubles of the people of Israel lasted. Through the prayer of Elisha, You struck down the Syrians, holding back their evil, but then healed them. You announced to Isaiah about the steps of Azakhov. Through the prayer of Ezekiel he held back the waters of the abyss. Through the prayer of Daniel, You held back the open lions.
I beg you, stop the evil around me. Protect your lips and hearts from hatred, slander, anger and envy, dishonor and ferocity. Don't let the evil consume and destroy me."
