Prayers in spiritual warfare
Christian prayers for protection and spiritual struggle, across the major traditions.
Christian traditions of prayer in spiritual warfare differ from one another, and it is worth being clear about how. The Pauline foundation is shared, but what each tradition built on it is not.
The armor of God
The common starting point is Ephesians 6:10-18, where Paul describes the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit. Every tradition below reads that passage; they differ in what they take it to describe.
Warfare against the passions in the Orthodox tradition
In Eastern Orthodoxy the struggle is principally inward, against the passions rather than against external forces. The Jesus Prayer is the primary tool, the hesychast tradition its discipline, and the Philokalia the standard collection of patristic teaching on it. The Akathist hymns serve the same end at greater length.
Catholic prayers for protection
The Catholic tradition addresses spiritual evil more directly. The Prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel, composed by Leo XIII in 1886, is the best known; the Anima Christi and the protection psalms are prayed in the same context.
The Celtic lorica
The lorica, or breastplate prayer, is a distinct Celtic Christian form that invokes God's protection over each part of the body and each circumstance of the day. Saint Patrick's Breastplate is the most famous surviving example.
Deliverance prayer in evangelical practice
Evangelical Protestant traditions have, since the twentieth century, developed varied practices of deliverance prayer drawing on both the armor passage and on charismatic experience. Practice differs widely between churches, and this collection presents the older prayers rather than taking a position on contested questions.