We pray them. Constantly.
The Psalms aren’t just something we read about or study in Bible class. They’re the backbone of Orthodox worship. Every service you attend at St. Michael’s is saturated with them. Vespers opens with Psalm 103 (“Bless the Lord, O my soul”) and moves through Psalms 140, 141, 129, and 116. Matins begins with the Six Psalms, a solemn reading of Psalms 3, 37, 62, 87, 102, and 142 that sets the tone for the morning. The Divine Liturgy weaves in psalm verses at the Little Entrance, during the communion hymns, and throughout the antiphons.
If you come from a Baptist or non-denominational background, this might feel strange at first. You’re used to maybe hearing a psalm read occasionally as Scripture. We do something different. We pray them as our own words.
The Church’s Prayer Book
The Psalter is what Orthodox call the prayer book of the Church. Not a prayer book, the prayer book. St. Athanasius wrote that the Psalms are unique because they give us the words to pray in every circumstance. Angry? There’s a psalm. Grateful? There’s a psalm. Terrified at 2 a.m. during hurricane season when the wind is tearing at your roof? Psalm 90 has you covered.
This is why Orthodox services don’t feel like a pastor talking at you with maybe a hymn or two sprinkled in. The services are structured prayer, and the Psalms provide much of that structure. When the choir chants “Lord, I have called upon Thee” at Vespers, they’re praying Psalm 140. When we sing the Polyeleos on Sunday morning, we’re praying selected verses from Psalm 134. It’s all psalm, all the way down.
Seeing Christ in the Psalms
But we don’t just pray the Psalms as ancient Hebrew poetry. We read them christologically.
That means we see Christ everywhere in them. Psalm 21 (“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”) isn’t just David’s lament, it’s Christ on the cross. Psalm 15 (“Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption”) is the Resurrection. Psalm 109 (“The Lord said unto my Lord, sit Thou at my right hand”) is Christ’s ascension and eternal kingship.
The Church fathers taught us to read this way. They didn’t impose meanings onto the text arbitrarily. They recognized that David and the other psalmists were prophets, and the Spirit who inspired them was pointing forward to Christ. So when we pray these psalms in the services, we’re not just remembering what David felt. We’re entering into the mystery of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.
Personal Prayer and the Psalter
The Psalms aren’t only for corporate worship. They’re for your prayer rule too.
Many Orthodox pray Compline at home before bed, which includes Psalms 4, 6, 12, 24, 30, 90, and others depending on whether you’re praying small or great Compline. Some people work through the entire Psalter on a schedule, the whole thing once a week, or once a month. Monks and clergy often have this as part of their rule. Laypeople can too, though it’s not required.
Your priest might assign you specific psalms as part of your prayer rule. Psalm 50 (the psalm of repentance, “Have mercy on me, O God”) is common. So is Psalm 90 (“He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High”). These aren’t homework assignments to earn God’s favor. They’re medicine. They’re how we learn to pray when we don’t know what to say.
And honestly, most of us don’t know what to say. We’re tired from a twelve-hour shift at the refinery, or we’re worried about a kid who’s struggling, or we’re just numb and distracted. The Psalms give us words when ours run out. They teach us to pray.
Living Inside the Psalter
There’s a rhythm to this that takes time to feel. At first, all the psalm numbers and the chanting and the sheer volume of psalmody can be overwhelming. That’s normal. But after you’ve been Orthodox for a while, you start to realize you’ve memorized chunks of the Psalter without trying. You know Psalm 103 by heart because you’ve heard it every Saturday evening at Vespers for two years. You find yourself humming “Praise the Lord, O my soul” while you’re driving down I-10.
The Psalms get inside you. That’s the point. They shape how you think, how you pray, how you see the world. They teach you to bless God for everything, to cry out to Him in trouble, to wait patiently when He seems silent, to rejoice when He acts. They form you into someone who prays always, as St. Paul commanded, because the words of prayer are always on your lips.
If you want to understand Orthodox worship, start paying attention to the Psalms. Get a Psalter and read it at home. Ask your priest which psalms are prayed at which services. Let them soak into your bones. You’re joining a tradition that’s been praying these same words for three thousand years, and we believe they’re just as living and active now as they were when David first sang them.
