On Prayer, from the Alphabetalphabetos of St. Meletios


trans. Hieromonk Ioannikios


A poem on prayer... how quaint, most contemporaries might respond! But for the Orthodox soul, there could be no more worthy subject for a poem. St. Meletios’s verses are here rendered in a straightforward and readable free form, made the more penetrating by a well-constructed brief life. Would that our contemporary poets more often might find such worthy subjects for their attention!