The Prayers of the Saints

The Saints of North America

One of our parishioners recently shared this excellent explanation of the role of the saints in the Church, especially in regard to their intercessory prayer. This can be very helpful to all of us, but especially to people with a Protestant background, and to those for whom this is such a foreign concept and experience. For the Orthodox, it is natural.

Do we pray to saints—or ask them to pray for us?

Behind this question is a deeper one: what do we really believe about the Church, the resurrection, and the communion of saints?

In the Orthodox Church, we don’t see death as a wall that severs us from those who’ve gone before us in Christ. We proclaim the life everlasting. And if Christ is risen, then the saints are not gone—they are alive in Him.

We affirm that Christ is risen. And if He is truly risen, then death is not the end. It is not separation. It is not silence. For those who have fallen asleep in the Lord, death has become the gateway to deeper life. They are not gone—they are alive in Him.

When we ask a saint to pray for us, we aren’t replacing Christ. We aren’t offering them worship. We are asking our brothers and sisters—who now behold the face of God without veil or distraction—to intercede for us in love.

We are participating in the communion of the Church, which is not divided by the grave. The saints are members of the same Body we belong to, only now they see clearly, love fully, and pray without ceasing in the presence of God.

Revelation 8:3–4 gives us a glimpse of this heavenly reality:

“And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints... and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God.”

What do we see here? The prayers of the saints—both those on earth and those in heaven—rising before God together. Offered with incense. Borne up by angelic hands. Received by the Lord.

Prayer, in the Orthodox life, is not a solitary act. It is communion. It is participation in the worship of heaven. And the saints, who now stand in the light of Christ, are not passive observers. They are active intercessors—part of the great cloud of witnesses who pray with us and for us.

The problem comes when we reduce prayer to a transaction—words sent upward, hoping for a response. But prayer, in the Orthodox life, is communion. It’s a relationship, a participation in the life of God. And because the saints are in Him, our relationship with them continues in love.

To ask for their prayers is not idolatry. It’s not superstition. It is faith in the risen Christ, who unites heaven and earth in His Body, the Church.

To ask for their prayers is to confess the Gospel: that Christ is alive, that His Church is one, and that nothing—not even death—can separate us from the love of God in Him.

So when we whisper, “Holy Theotokos, pray for us,” or “St. Nicholas, intercede for my child,” we are not breaking faith. We are confessing it.

So yes—we ask the saints to pray for us. Because we believe in the life of the world to come. Because we believe the tomb is empty. Because we believe in Christ.

Father-Don Purdum

Orthodox Priest/Pastor, Holy Trinity Orthodox Church-AOCC (Elizabethtown, PA), Historian, Theologian