Priest: Blessed is our God always, both now and ever, and to the ages of ages. . . Amen.

Trisagion Prayers. All Holy Trinity . . Our Father. . . (see page 32).

Priest: For Yours is the Kingdom . . Amen.

Then the Reader recites the Apolytikion (of the day) and the Kontakion (of the Temple).

Let us pray to the Lord.

Choir: Lord have mercy.

Priest: O Lord our God, Who through Your beloved Child, our Lord Jesus Christ, did call us children of God through adoption, and the Grace of Your All-Holy Spirit, and did say, "I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to Me a Son." Do You, the same King, Loving God, look down from Your holy dwelling place on high, upon these Your servants and unite their natures which you have begotten separate from one another according to the flesh, through Your Holy Spirit, into parents and son (daughter). Confirm them in Your love; bind them through Your benediction; bless them to Your great glory; strengthen them in Your Faith; preserve them always and renounce them not for that which proceeds from their Ups. Be Mediator for their promises, that their love which they have confessed to You be not torn asunder even to the evening of their lives; grant that they may be kept sincerely alive in You, our only Living and True God, and grant unto them to become heirs of Your Kingdom, for unto You is due all Glory: to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, both now and ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Peace (+) be to all.

Choir: And to your spirit.

Priest: Let us bow our heads unto the Lord

Choir: To You, O Lord.

Priest: O Master and Lord, Who are the Maker of all creatures, and by the first Adam did make the bonds of kinship according to the natural flesh, and through Jesus Christ our Lord, Your beloved Son and our God, by Grace did show us also as Your kin, now these Your servants bow their heads before You, Who alone know all things before their happenings, and ask of You a blessing, that in You they may receive that for which they hoped: the bond inscribed in one another, of parents and son (daughter); and that living worthily in You in adoption to sonship (daughtership), they may keep themselves in due constancy, that as in all things, so in this may be glorified in and to Your All-Holy Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, both now and ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Then let the child go up from the Sanctuary, and the parents receive their child from the Sanctuary. And the child shall bow before the parents, who shall place their hands upon the child's head and say:

Today you are our child; this day we have begotten you.

And the parents shall take their child in their arms and kiss one another

Then the Priest says the Apolysis.

Liturgical Texts courtesy and copyright of Holy Cross Press, Brookline, MA