Orthodox prayer is talking with God. Meditation is thinking about God.
That’s the simplest way to put it, but there’s more going on here that matters, especially if you’re coming from a background where “meditation” means something else entirely.
Prayer as Relationship
When we pray in the Orthodox Church, we’re entering into relationship with a Person. We’re not trying to empty our minds or achieve a state of inner peace (though peace might come). We’re not looking for a spiritual experience or trying to tap into some universal consciousness. We’re calling on Jesus Christ by name. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” That’s the Jesus Prayer, and it’s been the backbone of Orthodox spirituality for centuries.
Prayer is direct address. It’s you speaking to God, and God speaking to you. Sometimes that happens with words, lots of them, like in our liturgical services. Sometimes it happens in silence, but even the silence is relational. You’re standing before Someone.
Meditation as Preparation
Meditation in the Orthodox tradition means something specific. It’s thinking deeply about Scripture, about the lives of the saints, about God’s works in creation and history. The OCA’s teaching puts it this way: meditation is thought about God and contemplation of His word and His works. It’s what the Western church used to call lectio divina, slow, prayerful reading of Scripture where you’re not trying to gather information but letting the words sink into your heart.
You might read a psalm slowly, turning each verse over in your mind. You might stand before an icon of the Nativity and let yourself enter into the scene. You might think about what it means that God became man. This isn’t daydreaming. It’s focused attention on divine truth, and it naturally leads into prayer.
What We’re Not Doing
Here’s where it gets tricky for folks in Southeast Texas who’ve been exposed to yoga studios or mindfulness apps or even some contemporary Christian practices that borrow from Eastern religions. Orthodox meditation isn’t about emptying your mind. It’s about filling it with Christ.
Buddhist or Hindu meditation often aims for a kind of thoughtless awareness, a clearing out of mental content to achieve peace or enlightenment. That’s fundamentally different from what we’re doing. We’re not seeking emptiness. We’re seeking union with a Person who loves us. The battle in Orthodox prayer isn’t to stop thinking, it’s to direct our thoughts away from distraction and toward Christ. And it’s a battle. Your mind will wander. You’ll think about work schedules, about what you said to your cousin at the crawfish boil, about whether you need to pick up milk. The practice is gently bringing yourself back to Christ, over and over.
Some contemporary Christian meditation looks a lot like secular mindfulness with Jesus language sprinkled on top. That’s not what we mean either. Orthodox contemplative prayer is grounded in two thousand years of theology about who God is. We believe in a God who became flesh, who suffered, who rose from the dead. That belief shapes everything about how we pray.
The Prayer of the Heart
The deepest form of Orthodox prayer is what we call hesychasm, from the Greek word for stillness. Hesychasts, monks and laypeople who practice this tradition, use the Jesus Prayer with conscious breathing to descend from the mind into the heart. Not the physical heart, but the nous, the spiritual center of the person where we encounter God most directly.
This isn’t a technique you pick up from a book. It’s practiced under the guidance of a spiritual father or mother, because there are real dangers in trying to force spiritual experiences. But the goal is what St. Paul describes: “He who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him.” That’s theosis, union with God, and it’s what we’re all moving toward.
The Jesus Prayer becomes like breathing. You say it so often that it starts to pray itself. You’re at the refinery on night shift, and underneath your conscious thoughts, the prayer is running: Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. You’re stuck in traffic on I-10, and there it is again. This is what St. Paul meant by praying without ceasing.
Why the Difference Matters
If you’re exploring Orthodoxy and you’ve practiced other forms of meditation, you might notice some surface similarities. Breath awareness. Silence. Repetition. But the direction is completely different. We’re not looking inward to find our true self or achieve enlightenment. We’re looking upward and inward simultaneously, finding Christ who dwells in us by grace.
The Church Fathers warn against focusing on anything but Christ in prayer. It’s easy to get distracted by spiritual feelings, by visions, by the pleasure of a quiet mind. All of that can lead you astray if it’s not anchored in Christ. This is why we pray with icons, why we use the words of Scripture and the prayers of the saints. They keep us tethered to reality, to the actual God who actually became man in first-century Palestine.
If you want to learn more about Orthodox prayer, Fr. Thomas Hopko’s speaking the truth in love series on Ancient Faith Radio covers this beautifully. But the best way to learn is to start praying. Come to Vespers on a Saturday evening at St. Michael’s. Stand in the presence of God with the community. Let the words of the prayers wash over you. You don’t have to understand everything at first. Just show up, and let the prayer of the Church teach you how to pray.
