A Paraklesis is a service of supplication where we ask the Theotokos or a saint to intercede for us before God. The word itself means “entreaty” or “plea.” You’ll hear it most often during the first two weeks of August, though parishes also serve it when someone’s sick, facing surgery, or going through a hard time.
It’s not a long service. Maybe thirty minutes. But it’s intense in a quiet way.
The service centers on a supplicatory canon, a series of hymns that repeat the same theme over and over: we’re in trouble, we need help, and we’re asking the Mother of God to pray for us. There are two versions. The Small Paraklesis uses a canon written by a monk named Theosterictus. The Great Paraklesis is longer and more elaborate. During the Dormition Fast (August 1-14), parishes typically alternate between them on different evenings, building toward the feast of the Dormition on August 15th.
If you’ve been to Vespers, the structure will feel familiar. There are psalms, litanies, and troparia. But the tone is different. Everything in a Paraklesis leans toward petition. The priest keeps asking for “mercy, life, peace, health, salvation, and visitation” for specific people. You can submit names before the service, someone going through chemo, a son deployed overseas, a daughter struggling with addiction. The priest reads those names aloud during the litanies.
This isn’t magic. We’re not treating the Theotokos like some kind of cosmic vending machine. But we do believe she hears us and that her prayers carry weight with her Son. She’s the one who told Him about the wine running out at Cana, after all. She’s still interceding for us now, still saying “they have need.”
The hymns themselves are beautiful, though you might not catch all the words the first time you hear them chanted. They’re full of images: the Theotokos as a fountain of mercy, a haven for the storm-tossed, a wall of protection. Some of the language is startling. We call her “the fervent advocate for the human race.” We ask her to “quench the flame of our passions” and “deliver us from all tribulation.”
Here’s what surprises people coming from Protestant backgrounds: we’re not just praying for physical healing or circumstantial relief. We’re asking for spiritual healing too. The service assumes our deepest problem isn’t cancer or unemployment or hurricane damage (though those are real problems). Our deepest problem is separation from God. We need healing at that level first.
The Dormition Fast connection makes sense when you think about it. We’re preparing to celebrate the Theotokos falling asleep in death and being taken up into heaven. During those two weeks, we’re asking her to pray for us with special intensity, knowing that she understands what it means to suffer, to watch your Son die, to trust God when nothing makes sense. She’s been where we are.
But parishes don’t only serve Paraklesis in August. At St. Michael, like most Antiochian parishes, we’ll serve it when there’s a particular need. Someone’s going in for open-heart surgery. A family’s house flooded. A parishioner’s struggling with depression. The service gives us a way to gather as a community and bring that need before God together, with the Theotokos standing beside us adding her voice to ours.
There are also Paraklesis services written for other saints. St. Nectarios has one that’s popular. So does St. John Maximovitch. The structure stays the same, but the hymns change to reflect that saint’s life and the particular ways they’ve shown themselves as intercessors.
If you’ve never been to one, come. You don’t need to know the responses or follow along perfectly. Just stand there and let the prayers wash over you. Bring your needs, your fears, the names of people you’re worried about. We’ll ask the Theotokos to carry them to her Son, and we trust that she will.
