How this collection is built
Editorial standards
Every prayer on this site is reproduced from a verified primary source. We do not paraphrase, modernize, or adapt prayer texts for contemporary readers. The words on each page are the words as they appear in the source we cite. Where archaic spellings or punctuation might confuse a modern reader, we preserve the original and clarify in the notes.
Where a prayer exists in multiple forms, for example the Lord's Prayer with "trespasses" or "debts," or the Apostles' Creed in its modern and BCP forms, we document each form with its tradition, its date, and a note on which Christians use which version.
How sources are chosen
Where possible, we use the earliest broadly-accepted public-domain English translation of each prayer. For the Anglican collects and the General Thanksgiving, this means the Book of Common Prayer of 1662. For the Catholic prayers, this typically means the Lasance Blessed Sacrament Book of 1913 or the Roman Missal. For the Orthodox prayers, the Hapgood Service Book of 1906. For scriptural prayers, the King James Version of 1611. Every source is linked to a publicly-available scan, usually on archive.org.
Demographic data and contemporary statistics
Demographic data on Christian traditions and prayer practice is sourced from Pew Research Center reports, primarily the 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study published in February 2025. Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan research organization producing the most comprehensive surveys of US religious demographics. All demographic citations on this site attribute Pew Research Center as the source and link to the relevant report.
Pew Research Center bears no responsibility for the analyses or interpretations of the data presented here. The opinions expressed herein, including any implications for policy, are those of the editorial team and not of Pew Research Center.
A note on editorial prayers
The collection on this site falls into two clearly-separated parts. The first and main part is the historical collection: 122 prayers from the Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Protestant, and ecumenical traditions. About 119 of these are reproduced from a verified primary public-domain source and presented with the historical context and the source citation. The remaining three (the prayers attributed to Cyprian of Carthage, Tertullian, and Sojourner Truth) are explicitly disclosed as editorial syntheses of themes drawn from the figure's authentic recorded prayers and writings; each is labelled as such in its own context and notes. None of the 122 has been modernized in language.
The second part is a small set of editorial prayers in the Faith in Practice column, written by the editorial team for specific contemporary situations that the historical tradition does not directly address. These prayers appear only as worked examples inside an article on how Christians have historically written their own prayers. Each editorial prayer is explicitly labelled as such on the page, with a link to the closest traditional prayer in the historical collection. They are not part of the historical collection and are not presented as traditional.
We separate the two parts visibly and label them honestly. The historical collection is what it is. The editorial prayers are what they are.
Reporting errors
If you notice a difference between our text and the text in your own prayer book or liturgical edition, please tell us. Send the prayer name, the difference, and the source you're working from to hello@christian-prayers.com. We will check and correct.