Meals for the Soul — Orthodox Resources

Prayers · For particular occasions

On moving into a house

Who says it
The priest's, at the blessing of the house.
When
When a family moves in.

O God our Saviour, who was pleased to enter in under the roof of Zaccheus, and didst bring salvation unto him and unto all his house; do thou thyself now also preserve unhurt from every harm them that have purposed to live here, and offer unto thee prayers and supplications through us unworthy ones, blessing those whose dwelling-place is here, and preserving their life without snares.

For to thee is due all glory, honour, and worship, with thine unbeginning Father, and with thy most holy, and good, and life-creating Spirit, now and ever, and to ages of ages. Amen.

From G. V. Shann, Book of Needs of the Holy Orthodox Church, David Nutt, 1894, chapter XXIX, p. 259. The book itself — public domain.

Zaccheus is the tax collector up the tree in Luke 19, who came down and received Christ into his house that day.

Where these come from. Every prayer here is transcribed from a printed book that is out of copyright, and each one says which book and where in it. That is not fussiness. An English translation of an Orthodox prayer is a copyrighted work in its own right, separately from the Greek or Slavonic behind it, and in 2012 a monastery took a bishop to federal court for putting its translations on a website — and won. So these come from Hapgood's Service Book of 1906 and Shann's Euchology of 1891 and Book of Needs of 1894, which anyone may reprint. More on the sources and what is missing.