The Shimo is used for their liturgical prayer for most of the year, except in Lent, Holy Week, Pascha, and other major festivals, when they use another book called the Fanqitho. The Syriac Orthodox have the Shimo, meaning 'Simple', it consists of prayers for different times on each day of the week. The Oriental Orthodox, who we are not in communion with, but I am one of those who supports reunion, have two prayer books I really like, which are extremely easy to use.

This contains the Psalms and intermediate prayers, as well as the Eastern Orthodox, original version of the Athanasian Creed.

For this, I like A Psalter for Prayer by Jordanville Press (Holy Trinity Monastery, ROCOR). It has a forward by Kallistos Ware, and is divided into the usual hours, but the prayers, ehich are simple and beautiful, are taken from priests prayers from the Liturgy, Matins, and various sacramental services from the Barberini Codex, ancient prayers that used to be a part of the main Eastern Orthodox liturgy but which have either been modified or removed as time goes by, and which were always said by the priests silently.Īlso, the other option is to pray the Psalms. My favorite though is Praying In the Orthodox Tradition it is completely unique. Like the Akathists I have a Book of Akathists, I forget the name of the compiler, and the text of the divine liturgy, I have that in the form of several Liturgikons, and an Horologion (the Horologion is the prayer book used for actual services in the Church you can use it as your own prayer book, but its not the easiest option for beginners). I don't like it that much, because most of the material is sourced from other books which I own, which are more complete. Our jurisdiction has a little red prayerbook, but I think Jordanville is better, and the old version is freely available online.

Antiochian orthodox red prayer book