You call the church office and schedule a time for the priest to come. He’ll bring holy water blessed at Theophany, pray through your home, sprinkle each room with the water, and ask God’s protection on everyone who lives there.
That’s the short answer. But there’s more to understand about what’s happening and how you can maintain your home as a place of prayer between the priest’s visits.
The Priest’s Visit
Most Orthodox families have their homes blessed once a year, typically in the weeks after Theophany (January 6th, the Feast of Christ’s Baptism). The priest brings Jordan water, that’s what we call the water blessed at the Great Blessing of Waters on Theophany. He’s making his rounds through the parish, and depending on how spread out everyone is, this can take him weeks. Here in Southeast Texas, where your fellow parishioners might live anywhere from Vidor to Orange to Lumberton, the priest has a lot of driving to do.
When he arrives, greet him and ask for his blessing. The whole family should be there if possible. He’ll gather everyone at your icon corner, the place in your home where you keep icons and a candle for prayer. If you don’t have one yet, just set up a small table or shelf with an icon or two and a lit candle before he comes. That’s enough.
The service itself is short. Maybe fifteen minutes. The priest will pray, read petitions asking God to bless your household, and then walk through your home sprinkling the holy water in each room. He’ll cense the rooms too, filling them with the smell of incense. He’s asking God to make your home a place where His presence dwells, where you and your family can grow toward salvation, where evil has no foothold.
At the end he’ll pray for everyone in the household by name, living and dead. Have a list ready with everyone’s baptismal names. He’ll say something like, “Grant, O Lord, a prosperous and peaceful life, health and salvation to your servants,” and then name each person. You respond, “Many years!”
It’s not magic. It’s the Church extending her life into your home, connecting what happens at the altar on Sunday with what happens at your kitchen table on Tuesday.
What You Can Do Daily
The priest’s annual visit isn’t the whole story. Your home stays blessed through what you do in it.
Keep that icon corner active. Pray there morning and evening, even if it’s just the Lord’s Prayer and a quick “Lord have mercy” some days. Light the candle. Make the sign of the cross. Teach your kids to do the same. This is how a house becomes a home where God is known and loved, not just visited once a year by the priest.
Keep some of that holy water. The priest will leave you a bottle. You can sprinkle a little in rooms when you feel the need, or make the sign of the cross with it on your forehead when you pray. Some families bless their children with it at night.
Incense isn’t just for the priest’s visit. You can buy a small censer and use it during your prayers, especially on feast days. The smoke rising is like your prayers ascending to God. It sanctifies the space.
And read Scripture in your home. Pray together as a family when you can. Forgive each other. Show hospitality. These things matter more than whether you remembered to dust the icons before the priest arrived.
Why We Do This
Christ entered homes during His earthly ministry. He blessed them by His presence. He ate with Zacchaeus, stayed with Mary and Martha, healed Peter’s mother-in-law in her house. When He was baptized in the Jordan, He sanctified all water. So when the priest brings that blessed water into your home, he’s connecting your household to Christ’s baptism, to His presence, to the life of the Church.
We don’t believe our homes are secular spaces that have nothing to do with our faith. We’re not Sunday-morning Christians who leave God at the church building. We’re being transformed into the likeness of Christ, and that happens everywhere, at work, in the car, at the dinner table, in the bedroom. Blessing the home acknowledges that reality. It asks God to make your household a little church, a place where the spiritual battle is fought and won through prayer and repentance and love.
The blessing isn’t a force field that keeps bad things from happening. Orthodox families still face job losses and illnesses and hurricanes. But it’s a sign that this household belongs to God, that the people here are trying (however imperfectly) to live as Christians, that they want His help.
If you’ve never had your home blessed, call the church office. If it’s been years, call again. And in the meantime, light that candle, say those prayers, and make your home a place where Christ is welcomed every day.
