It’s a list of names you give the priest to pray for during the Divine Liturgy. That’s the short answer. But there’s something beautiful happening with those names that most people don’t realize when they first start filling out those little slips of paper near the candle stand.
Before the Liturgy begins, while most of us are still arriving and lighting candles, the priest is at the altar table doing something called the Proskomedia. He’s preparing the bread and wine that will become the Body and Blood of Christ. And he’s got your list.
For each name you wrote down, he removes a small triangular piece from the prosphora, that’s the round leavened bread we use. He places each piece on the paten, arranging them around the central Lamb (the portion that will be consecrated). Your mother’s name gets a particle. Your sick coworker gets a particle. Your departed grandmother gets a particle. They’re all there, physically present on the altar, about to be caught up in the Eucharist itself.
Later in the Liturgy, after the consecration, the priest takes those particles and places them in the chalice with Christ’s Blood while praying, “Wash away, O Lord, the sins of all those here commemorated, through Thy precious Blood.” This isn’t symbolic. We believe something real happens when a name is commemorated at the Liturgy.
Living and Departed
You’ll notice the slips have two sections, or sometimes churches provide separate slips. One says “For the Health of” or “For the Living.” The other says “For the Repose of” or “For the Departed.”
Living names can be anyone Orthodox who’s in good standing with the Church. Your kids, your spouse, your friend in another state, your godchildren. We’re praying for their health and salvation. If you want to pray for someone who’s not Orthodox, maybe your Baptist mother or your Catholic uncle, you can still pray for them, but those names go in the litanies rather than being commemorated at the Proskomedia. Just ask how your parish handles that.
Departed names are only for Orthodox Christians who died in the Church. We can’t commemorate non-Orthodox departed at the altar, though we certainly hope for God’s mercy on all. This isn’t about being exclusive. It’s about the nature of what happens at the Liturgy, we’re bringing these people into communion with Christ’s Body and Blood, and that communion is the Church.
Practical stuff
Most parishes have printed slips near the candle stand or in the narthex. Fill one out before Liturgy starts. Write clearly, priests have told me they sometimes can’t read the handwriting, and nobody wants their Aunt Helen commemorated as “Aunt Hrlrn.” Use Orthodox baptismal names. If your friend John was baptized Jonah, use Jonah.
Keep it reasonable. Ten names or fewer per list works well. If you’ve got a long list of people you pray for regularly, consider getting a commemoration book. It’s a small booklet where you write names in sections, hierarchs, family, friends, departed. You hand the whole book to the altar server before Liturgy, and it comes back to you afterward.
Some parishes ask for a small offering when you submit names, usually to cover the cost of the prosphora. That’s normal. The woman who bakes that bread, and yes, it’s usually someone in the parish who bakes it, uses specific ingredients and a lot of time.
Why this matters
When I first started attending an Orthodox church, I thought these lists were just a nice way to remember people. Like a prayer request card at a Baptist church. But it’s more than that.
The Church is one body, living and dead together. When we commemorate names at the Liturgy, we’re not just thinking about these people or sending good thoughts their way. We’re bringing them into the most powerful prayer the Church has, the Eucharist itself. St. John Chrysostom wrote that the departed receive great benefit when they’re commemorated “in the presence of the awesome Mysteries.”
Your grandmother who died twenty years ago? She’s still part of the Church. Still being prayed for. Still receiving the mercy of God through the prayers offered at the altar. And your daughter working offshore on a rig during hurricane season? She’s being lifted up too, her name spoken before God, a particle of bread representing her placed in the chalice.
This is how Orthodox Christians pray for each other. Not just in our private prayers at home (though we do that too), but in the Liturgy, where heaven and earth meet. Next time you fill out that little slip of paper, you’re not just making a list. You’re entrusting these people to the heart of the Church’s life.
