Service of the
Adoption of a Child
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. 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.
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