Is the Prayer Rope ever used as a necklace?

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PazzoGrande

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In the West, sometimes people use Rosaries as necklaces.

Do Easterners ever do that? Or is it always worn around the wrist?

I keep wondering if Rosaries and Prayer Ropes come in loops because they at one time were intended to be worn as necklaces but it just fell out of vogue or something.
 
PazzoGrande said:
In the West, sometimes people use Rosaries as necklaces.

Do Easterners ever do that? Or is it always worn around the wrist?

I keep wondering if Rosaries and Prayer Ropes come in loops because they at one time were intended to be worn as necklaces but it just fell out of vogue or something.
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(1) They are Not Prayer Ropes. (2) They should NEVER be worn as a decoration to Self! ANY Place in the World (3) They are Blessed Instruments of Very Powerful PRAYER.
 
The Eastern Catholic and Orthodox “rosary” is indeed most commonly called a chotki, komvoskini, lestovka, vervitsa, or prayer rope, contrary to one of the above posts who said it isn’t. Many English speakers will call it a prayer rope, the other names come from Greek, Slavonic, and Russian. But that is just an explanatory side note.

Typically the prayer rope is not worn as a necklace. In fact, I’ve never seen one worn as a necklace before, and I couldn’t imagine they would be very comfortable if worn in such a way. Usually they are either worn on the left wrist or carried in one’s pocket or purse.
 
Trishie said:
Hi, 🙂
you might find it interesting to read the history at this site:

rosarybeads.com.au/history/
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Thank you so much for the link! 🙂 I would like to post a quote from it:

Archbishop Fulton Sheen said, “The rosary is the book of the blind, where souls see and there enact the greatest drama of love the world has ever known; it is the book of the simple, which initiates them into mysteries and knowledge more satisfying than the education of other men; it is the book of the aged, whose eyes close upon the shadow of this world, and open on the substance of the next. The power of the rosary is beyond description.”

I think what Archbishop Sheen said is beautiful.

I had never heard of a “prayer rope.” I googled it but mostly what I found were ads. I saw some photos and I have to admit they are very beautiful and I can understand why a person would want to wear one as a necklace. I would! But of course that doesn’t mean I should.

My computer isn’t working very well; I’ll probably lose my Internet connection soon. Does anyone have a link which would explain the history of the prayer rope and also how it should be used? It’s obviously not a rosary (or at least not what I think of as a rosary). What exactly is it? Thanks for any info.
 
PazzoGrande said:
In the West, sometimes people use Rosaries as necklaces.

Do Easterners ever do that? Or is it always worn around the wrist?

I keep wondering if Rosaries and Prayer Ropes come in loops because they at one time were intended to be worn as necklaces but it just fell out of vogue or something.
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I have only seen gang members wearing rosaries as necklaces. That was quite a shock to me. But I’ve heard that it is now considered “fashionable” to wear rosaries as necklaces. If I thought they were being worn not simply as decoration but as precious objects that bring us closer to God I wouldn’t object. I sometimes wear a one-decade rosary on a wrist - not as a bracelet (although it is very pretty) but because it helps me say the rosary.

Am I doing something wrong by wearing it?
 
LittleSoldier said:
I had never heard of a “prayer rope.”
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Yeah same here until I started to buy some Eastern stuff. I inherited a Chalice and I wanted to get a nice Paten and Gospels Book to match it. The Easterners really make beautiful ones; I saw some Roman Catholic sellers have much inferior items for much higher prices.

Anyway just to share what I learnt with you, the story goes that Saint Pachomius the Great was making knots to count how many times he prayed but the devil kept untying it, so an angel showed him a special knot that the devil cannot untie made up of seven crosses. That is how the knot came about.

The Rosary in fact comes from the prayer rope (the story about Saint Dominic having gotten it from Mary apparently is just a legend). I read that in the East, they tended to pray the Our Father while in the West they tended to pray the Hail Mary. The Prayer Rope can come in different numbers of knots or beads (33, 50, 100, 150, etc.), but of course as you know, the Rosary has a set number meant to match the 150 psalms.

Prayer ropes are made by monks and the traditonal prayer is “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” which is called the Jesus Prayer.

I have also read on CAF that when you recite the first part, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,” you inhale. When you get to “have mercy on me, a sinner,” you exhale. Hard for me to do personally but I might just not be doing it right.

There is a set of prostrations that people can do with it but as I understand it, it isn’t recommended to do it without a spiritual director. I don’t know why but it would be fascinating to learn the reasoning.

I learnt how to make these and began to do it as a hobby, giving one as a gift to someone I pray for (I pray while I make each knot). It’s quite a task; it takes me over a minute to do each knot, and I also bought a lot of beads for dividers and tassels. I even have to drill the beads to get the holes big enough to fit the satin material through. But it’s worth the work because these are just so beautiful and it’s a nice expression of care that people appreciate.
 
LittleSoldier said:
I have only seen gang members wearing rosaries as necklaces. That was quite a shock to me. But I’ve heard that it is now considered “fashionable” to wear rosaries as necklaces.
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Armani Exchange sells “Rosary” necklaces and bracelets; I was going to buy some as gifts but just to make sure, I counted the beads before I bought them. Turns out the numbering is wrong – they aren’t real Rosaries as far as I consider it.

I’ve worn Rosary bracelets and rings too and they look cool but, I’m sorry, to wear it as a necklace is just tacky. For me it looks like you don’t know what you’re doing when you do that.

That’s why I was wondering, would Easterns find wearing prayer ropes as tacky as I find it when people wear Rosaries like that.
 
AntalKalnoky said:
(1) They are Not Prayer Ropes. (2) They should NEVER be worn as a decoration to Self! ANY Place in the World (3) They are Blessed Instruments of Very Powerful PRAYER.
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By the same token, medals and pectoral crosses shouldn’t be worn. Yet they are.
 
PazzoGrande said:
Prayer ropes are made by monks and the traditonal prayer is “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” which is called the Jesus Prayer.

I have also read on CAF that when you recite the first part, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,” you inhale. When you get to “have mercy on me, a sinner,” you exhale. Hard for me to do personally but I might just not be doing it right.

There is a set of prostrations that people can do with it but as I understand it, it isn’t recommended to do it without a spiritual director. I don’t know why but it would be fascinating to learn the reasoning.

I learnt how to make these and began to do it as a hobby, giving one as a gift to someone I pray for (I pray while I make each knot). It’s quite a task; it takes me over a minute to do each knot, and I also bought a lot of beads for dividers and tassels. I even have to drill the beads to get the holes big enough to fit the satin material through. But it’s worth the work because these are just so beautiful and it’s a nice expression of care that people appreciate.
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Do we have another prayer rope maker here at CAF? I’d be very interested in seeing some of your work. I think there’s some photographs of my own work somewhere on this thread. TimothyH was kind enough to post them. Would you be willing to post some photos as well.

Incidentally it takes me between 1 and 2 minutes to tie each knot as well. A 33 knot rope usually takes me about an hour to tie. For a 50 knot rope I can sit through one part of the Lord of the Rings movies. And a 100 knot rope usually takes a few evenings to make.

Where did you learn to tie prayer ropes?
 
Phillip_Rolfes said:
Do we have another prayer rope maker here at CAF? I’d be very interested in seeing some of your work. I think there’s some photographs of my own work somewhere on this thread. TimothyH was kind enough to post them. Would you be willing to post some photos as well.

Incidentally it takes me between 1 and 2 minutes to tie each knot as well. A 33 knot rope usually takes me about an hour to tie. For a 50 knot rope I can sit through one part of the Lord of the Rings movies. And a 100 knot rope usually takes a few evenings to make.

Where did you learn to tie prayer ropes?
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Sure, I’ll be happy to post them up! Give me some time though. I gave all the nice ones I had away; right now I have some that are “in progress” and one that I kept because I accidentally messed up on the tassel.

You know what, may be a better idea if we start a brand new thread where we and other users post the ones we make. I’ll do that and I’ll send you a link to it.

I learnt mine from a video I bought on some website. It was Firebird-something or other. I did make one change though – I put one strand that goes through each knot (hard to explain) but it keeps it from getting stretched.

I hope to be done with the batch I have within a week or so. I’m almost done with all of the knots; I just have to worry about the tassel. I use rattail material; if you try to dishevel it from one end, you can make the fibres loose and it makes a neat tassel. Then I take some strands and super-glue beads on then. It takes some time and this is where most of my mistakes happen, but it looks awesome when it’s done right.

Sorry, really hard to explain what I mean – but you’ll see it when I post the pics up.

When you post yours up too, let us know if you did anything special with it too. Maybe we can gain some points from each other on how to make better ones. I’m just doing it on my own so I don’t really have anyone to tell me what I might be doing wrong. This is exciting!
 
There are pictures of my ropes on another thread, but it would be fun to start a new thread just for posting pictures and talking shop. I like your idea of running an extra piece of thread through the rope to keep it from stretching. I don’t really have any problems with stretching because I pull my knots really tight, but I like the idea of the extra reinforcement.
 
AntalKalnoky said:
(1) They are Not Prayer Ropes. (2) They should NEVER be worn as a decoration to Self! ANY Place in the World (3) They are Blessed Instruments of Very Powerful PRAYER.
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Amen! I wore a Rosary around my neck in Vietnam, mainly because I was afraid of losing it out of my pocket. I was also comforted by being able to put my hand on it. On operations, I would say the Rosary on my fingers, because I needed both hands for my weapon.
 
I don’t see the harm in wearing a rosary in the way one would wear a necklace. There is nothing forbidding this IF the rosary is treated as a sacred instrument. Before I put on the rosary (this is personal and in no way reflects any kind of tradition of the church, just something I do as a sign of respect), but I genuflect before the rosary and make the sign of the cross and then kiss the feet of Christ to show (prayerfully) obedience and loyalty before wearing the rosary. I don’t wear it because I think of it as jewelry, I wear it because His Holiness instructed all Catholics to live their faith publicly and I am using this as means of doing so as it visibly identifies me as being Catholic and has sparked a conversation before about the matter. Whether that conversation will lead to others and then conversion is God’s will alone but personally I don’t see it as sacrilege or offensive or anything. That said, for those who wear it when they’re dancing around half naked on mtv then absolutely. That is abhorrent and should be denounced fiercely. Our Lady Blessed us with this gift of the Rosary. It is sacred and should ALWAYS be treated as such. But I also think it is something that should be shared. God Bless 👍
 
hosemonkey said:
Amen! I wore a Rosary around my neck in Vietnam, mainly because I was afraid of losing it out of my pocket. I was also comforted by being able to put my hand on it. On operations, I would say the Rosary on my fingers, because I needed both hands for my weapon.
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That is a very nice story. 🙂 It made me think of when Blessed John Paul II was shot and before they operated on him he requested that he be allowed to wear his scapular (I think it was the Brown Scapular). Evidently the doctors did or at least they said they did. Wearing a rosary in conditions such as you described - well, it’s like holding it close to your heart. It is a precious, holy instrument.
 
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