Prayer Bead (Chotki, Komboskini)

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I saw an EO priest with a Komboskini, but it had both the knots and color beads in between. And it looked like it had a clasp as opposed to the typical one that you roll over your hand to get on your wrist.

Anyone know where to get one like that and anyone have any pics to share of it?

Thanks
 
Eastern_Guy said:
it was a wrist one that had the knots and I think blue beads between each knot and it looked like it had a clasp so you can put it on your wrist as opposed to rolling it over your hand as they usually come.
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huh! I really don’t think I’ve ever seen that! :hmmm:
 
Nicholas82 said:
Sure am! 🙂 Hmmmmm, if I ever come across something like that I’ll let you know though…
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I’m Serb EO so I saw one of our priests wear it. I didn’t get a chance to ask him. Typically all the komboskinis I’ve seen are either wool or nylon and they just roll onto your wrist. They typically would have colored bead (blue/red)

The one he had had blue black and looked like small gold in it.
 
Eastern_Guy said:
I’m Serb EO so I saw one of our priests wear it. I didn’t get a chance to ask him. Typically all the komboskinis I’ve seen are either wool or nylon and they just roll onto your wrist. They typically would have colored bead (blue/red)

The one he had had blue black and looked like small gold in it.
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Yea all the ones I’ve seen have been the wool or nylon types you just roll onto your wrist, I wasn’t even aware there were ones with clasps! I’m Antiochian, we actually have a few Serbs that regularly attend our parish- actually Serbs, Russians, and a few Greeks, the diversity is nice. Then there’s German and Polish me worshiping with mostly Lebanese with an Egyptian priest, love it! 😃
 
LilyM said:
See, looking at that I’m wondering how you can feel the difference between one knot and the next - it looks pretty much like a solid band to me.

I guess if I felt one I’d probably know. 🤷
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As you use it the rope will stretch out a little; or you can just give it a slight tug from both ends and the knots will seperate a little bit… if you seperate them too much though then you have the single strands of wool between the knots and it’s liable to wear more quickly I’ve found…
 
I am Roman Catholic. I have a friend who was just advised by a Roman Catholic priest to get prayer beads used in the Eastern Orthodox Church. He says it is for meditation.

Can anyone please explain this to me?
 
Can you explain what the prayer beads are for, and how to use them, and what they help to accomplish, and how?
 
Jesus_N_Cherie said:
I am Roman Catholic. I have a friend who was just advised by a Roman Catholic priest to get prayer beads used in the Eastern Orthodox Church. He says it is for meditation.

Can anyone please explain this to me?
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Typically, it is a repetitive meditative prayer. Simple forms of the prayer can be as short as “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon me a sinner.” Longer versions are common: “O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner!” The shortest is simply “Lord have Mercy!”

St. Luke’s Serbian Orthodox has a nice page on prayer ropes with several other prayers used with it:

Beside the Jesus prayer, we can recite a prayer to the Most Holy Mother of God, or to the saints: “O Most Holy Mother of God, save me - a sinner!”

“O Holy (name of the saint) pray to God for me - a sinner!”

With prayer ropes we can pray for our relatives, neighbors, or our people, by holding the first knot of our prayer rope and saying:

“O Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on Thy servants (name, or a list of names), and with the rest of the knots we do not repeat again the names of those that we prayed for, but we say: " O Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on Thy mentioned servants…!”

This way we can also pray for the departed relatives: " O Lord Jesus Christ, give rest to Thy servants (names), and again with the rest of the knots: " O Lord Jesus Christ, give rest to Thy mentioned servants!"
svluka.org/SvLuka/Teens/PrayerRopes.aspx

Russian Monastics use “Lord Jesus Christ, Son and Word of the living God, through the intercessions of thine all-pure Mother and of all thy Saints, have mercy and deliver us.” for each knot.
(aggreen.net/monasteries/prayrope.html)

It serves the same purpose as a Rosary: to count the prayers while praying so one can meditate while praying and not have to count.

Next time you say the rosary, think not so much about the prayers, but the mysteries. Delay the prayers if you need to, but dwell deeply upon the mystery for that decade. Then pray the prayers of the decade.
 
Jesus_N_Cherie said:
Can you explain what the prayer beads are for, and how to use them, and what they help to accomplish, and how?
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Most often it’s used to count repetitions of the ‘Jesus Prayer’ - ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner’. Rather like our western Rosaries are used to count repetitions of the ‘Our Father’, ‘Hail Mary’ etc.

This prayer can be repeated upwards of 600 times a day, usually one links it to one’s breath by praying breathing in while saying ‘Lord … Living God’ and out on the ‘have mercy …’.

Part of its purpose is that it’s a good way of fulfilling St Paul’s command to ‘pray unceasingly’. Rather like Latin Catholics might make frequent use of other short aspirational prayers during the day.

The frequent repetition means that the prayer really becomes part of your consciousness - and subconscious (which is possibly a reason why it’s also called the ‘Prayer of the Heart’.

Beyond that, I’ll have to admit that I’m not an expert, so I’ll leave it to my more knowledgeable EC and Orthodox brothers to explain further.
 
Aramis said:
Typically, it is a repetitive meditative prayer. Simple forms of the prayer can be as short as “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon me a sinner.” Longer versions are common: “O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner!” The shortest is simply “Lord have Mercy!”

St. Luke’s Serbian Orthodox has a nice page on prayer ropes with several other prayers used with it:

Beside the Jesus prayer, we can recite a prayer to the Most Holy Mother of God, or to the saints: “O Most Holy Mother of God, save me - a sinner!”

“O Holy (name of the saint) pray to God for me - a sinner!”

With prayer ropes we can pray for our relatives, neighbors, or our people, by holding the first knot of our prayer rope and saying:

“O Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on Thy servants (name, or a list of names), and with the rest of the knots we do not repeat again the names of those that we prayed for, but we say: " O Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on Thy mentioned servants…!”

This way we can also pray for the departed relatives: " O Lord Jesus Christ, give rest to Thy servants (names), and again with the rest of the knots: " O Lord Jesus Christ, give rest to Thy mentioned servants!"
svluka.org/SvLuka/Teens/PrayerRopes.aspx

Russian Monastics use “Lord Jesus Christ, Son and Word of the living God, through the intercessions of thine all-pure Mother and of all thy Saints, have mercy and deliver us.” for each knot.
(aggreen.net/monasteries/prayrope.html)

It serves the same purpose as a Rosary: to count the prayers while praying so one can meditate while praying and not have to count.

Next time you say the rosary, think not so much about the prayers, but the mysteries. Delay the prayers if you need to, but dwell deeply upon the mystery for that decade. Then pray the prayers of the decade.
Click to expand...
Beautiful. Thank you.
Folks might be interested in the daily scripture reading podcasts here: stlukesbyzantine.blogspot.com/
 
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