The Prayer of Saint Cyprian
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men. On this Sunday that God Most High blessed and sanctified, for on it our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ rose again, I implored Him and besought Him and said: Lord of lords and King of kings, God of all and Ruler of all, You who dwell in the great, unapproachable light, O Holy One, glorified from of old, You know my secret, I Your servant: when I obeyed Satan and did not know Your holy name, I used to bind the sky so that no rain came down upon the earth, and the earth yielded no harvest.
When I passed by flocks of sheep, they would miscarry; when I passed by a pregnant woman, she could not give birth; I kept the serpents of the sea from moving through the depths, so many were my evil deeds. But now that I have come to know Your holy name, my Lord, my God and my Master Jesus Christ, and have come to love Your pure remembrance, turned away from disobedience and returned to obeying You, I ask You and Your Father and Your Holy Spirit that the sky be loosed and rain come down upon the earth, that the earth yield its harvest and the trees their fruit, that women give birth to whole and healthy children who nurse at their breasts, and that the life of the sea and all that is in it, the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, be set free.
May every person who has done evil deeds be brought to nothing and undone; may every sorcery people have learned, every evil and envious eye and every wicked thing be undone and brought to nothing by the power of Your holy name, and flee from the bearer of this writing (…) and from the one over whom this prayer is read. May no evil and no wicked thing stand before him; may every spell, every knot and every evil binding be loosed from him; drive away from him every evil and envious eye, and deliver him from it and from all that harms him.
Set right, O Lord, his life in soul and body by Your great name, You who brought water out of the rock so that the children of Israel drank; so too may Your hand, full of grace and mercy, be upon this Your servant who carries this writing (…).
Yes, O Lord, You who planted the garden in Eden and made four rivers flow in it, the Pishon and the Gihon, the Tigris and the Euphrates, do not let unclean and accursed Satan have power over the bearer of this writing of mine (…), nor harm him, by the power of Your great name; let no knot, no envious eye and no sorcery stand before him; drive away from him every evil thing, keep far from him all who resist, trouble and oppose him, and let Gion be deprived and put to shame, he and all his powers, and driven from before this servant of God.
Set right, O Lord, his conduct, his ways and paths, his body and all his joints, his strength and all his movements, by the power of the great God and the Holy Spirit, and of the sixty-six angels who came down upon Abi Fanous in the name of the cherubim, and of those who bow down before the Lord and His living and glorified Son; loose from the bearer of this writing (…) every spell and binding and evil eye, and every evil one, by the prayer of the holy angels; save him, O Lord, from everything that evil people carry; save him, O Lord, in the name of the One who rides upon the cherubim who serve the great throne.
May nothing of the human race be able to stand against the bearer of this writing of mine (…) in anything at all, neither by night nor by day; and may Gion be accursed, he and all his helpers and soldiers, by the anathema of Saint Peter and of all the pure apostles, by the prayers of those on high, by the supplication of the forefathers, by the perfection of the saints, by the perfection of the strangers, by the perfection of our father Adam, by the offering of Abel, by the body of Seth, by the perfection of Enosh, by the humility of Mahalalel, by the holiness of Noah, by the birth of Shem, by the faithfulness of Abraham, by the offering of Isaac, whom God redeemed from sacrifice, by the priesthood of Melchizedek, by the prophecy of Jacob, by the perfection of Joseph, by the love of Benjamin, by the humility of Moses, by the might of Joshua son of Nun, by the priesthood of David, by the rejoicing of Elisha, by the proclamation of Isaiah, by the prophecy of Jeremiah, by the resurrection of Zechariah, by the prophecy of the prophets and by the kindness of those who do not sleep at night.
By the depth of the deeps, by the voice of thunder, by the drawing back of the clouds from the sky, by the ranks of the angels, by the vision of Moses, by the sight of the great light, by the holding back of the clouds, by the birth of our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ, by His baptism by John in the river Jordan.
By the voice of the Father who called to Him from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” who turned water into wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, who fed thousands on the earth with five loaves, who rebuked the wind and it grew calm, who gave life to the widow’s son, who raised Lazarus from the tomb, who was crucified and buried and rose from the tomb on the third day; by His ascension into heaven, by the praises of the angels, by the Lord of thousands upon thousands and the Lord of the thousands who were around Him as He ascended into heaven, by the voice of the apostles.
By the lifting up of Jesus Christ, may every spell, every knot and every binding be loosed, by the power of God the Creator, by the cry the Lord uttered on the wood of the Cross, “My God, why have You forsaken me?”, in the name of the great, glorified and worshipped God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit: whether it be in a door, in lead, in cotton, in linen, in wool or in iron, in a human bite, in a beast, a bird, a four-footed animal or a fish, may all of it be loosed; and whether it be in wood, in a tree, in a building, in a storehouse, in a well, a spring, a channel or a bath, in the grave of a Christian, a Muslim or a Jew, in a sarcophagus, a cave or a mountain, over a doorway, in a sheepfold, a field, a farm, a vineyard or a garden, on someone killed, crucified or hanged, in a dead man’s bone or a beast’s skull, may all of it be loosed by the power of God and of His beloved Son and His authority; and if it has been worked in an idol of lead, silver or dough, or in an iron lock, may all of it be loosed, and everything evil people do, by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, by the great King; may all of it be loosed from him and from those in his house; may God open mercy to him and put love for him in the hearts of the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve, by the rays of the sun, the light of the moon and the light of the stars, by the four evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, by the intercession of the Intercessor, our Lady the Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, and of the apostles and the twelve saints, and all the martyrs, the archdeacon Stephen, the great saints George and Theodore, conquerors of demons, the great martyr Saint Demetrius in the city of Sebaste, Agromanios, Epiphanius, Benjamin and all the saints we have and have not named, the cross-bearing women, Saint Barbara and her seven daughters, Saint Simeon the Wonderworker and Simeon the Stylite, Saint Isaiah, Saint Christopher and all the saints renowned for their love of Christ. And we seal this by the power of the life-giving God and the holy, life-giving Cross, and by the intercession of the apostles, prophets and martyrs who pleased God by their good works: I have loosed and I loose Your servant, the bearer of this writing of mine (…), in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Be gone, Satan! I adjure you, unclean and accursed spirit, and I charge you in the name of the almighty and eternal Lord, who has no beginning and no end, who endures for ever and ever, and by the fear of the angels who stand before Him veiling their faces before the majesty of His glory, lest they look upon the great and dreadful sight: the flowing river of fire in which all unclean spirits burn, from which came down the fire that consumed the fifty-five who were with Elijah, before the God of gods and Lord of lords. I adjure you, I charge you and I drive you out, unclean spirits, and I command you not to come near the bearer of this writing (…), neither by night nor by day, neither in his sleep nor when he is awake, neither sitting nor standing, neither in his presence nor in his absence, nor when he goes out; let none of you enter his house or appear to him in any form: you have no power over him.
Nor over any place where this writing is. Rather, may every evil and accursed thing flee from him and be quenched as the fire of the furnace was quenched before the three young men; may all unclean things flee from him as Goliath fell before David, and collapse as the walls of Jericho collapsed before Joshua. And if you dare, O spirits, to overstep the limits of these words or this prayer, an evil day will come upon you, Satan, and its darkness will surround you, by the praise of the heavenly angels, by the great and worshipped throne, by the voice that cried out on Mount Sinai ablaze with light, which spoke to the prophet Moses and gave the Law to the children of Israel from the hand of the living God, through which they came to know His great, holy and glorified name, by works and faith, by the unchanging miracle, by the great power, by the three orders, by Michael the Archangel and all his hosts, by the prayer of the three young men in the burning fiery furnace that did not burn a hair of their heads: so may every written line, every knot and every binding be loosed; and may he wear on his head the crown of Stephen, first martyr and archdeacon, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Almighty, by the Cross, by His Blood shed on the wood of the Cross, by Golgotha, by the right hand of John the Baptist and the right hand of the saints, by the crown of King David, by the fasting of the martyrs who offered themselves, by the great power of God, by the chariot that the prophet Ezekiel saw, by the four faces inscribed beneath the chariot of the great Lord, the face of the lion, the face of the ox, the face of the eagle and the face of the man: I have loosed and I loose from the bearer of this writing (…) every evil thought from Satan, and I ask that the doors of mercy be opened to him, that he be loved and accepted by God and people, that no sorcery, no knot and no evil eye have any effect on him, from behind or from the seventy-two tongues. This is the limit I have loosed, by the great Spirit with which You cried, “Adam, where are you?” I have loosed and I loose the bearer of this writing (…) by His grace, which created and formed Adam; I have loosed and I loose everyone over whom this is read, by His power that parted the sea for the children of Israel so that they walked through it; by the voice that called Lazarus, “Come out!”; by the voice with which You said to the paralytic, “Take up your bed and walk,” after he had lain on the ground for thirty-six years; by the One who loosed the chains of Paul: so too, O Lord, loose Your servant, the bearer of this writing (…), and all who are in his house, from every evil thing, every knot, every spell and every thing that has been worked; keep him with Your mighty right hand, shelter him in the shadow of Your wings, and keep far from him, his family and all in his house every unclean thing and every evil eye; for heaven and earth will pass away, but not one of Your words will pass away, and every evil word God brings to nothing. So we ask You, our God, through the prayers of all the saints who have pleased You, that every spell and every evil knot flee and depart from its bearer (…) and from his household, by the power of the great God; let nothing evil and none of the troublesome and evil things come near him, neither by night nor by day, nor in any of his works; and may God destroy swiftly all who practise sorcery. Great distress will come upon you, unclean spirit; God will make your heaven bronze and your earth lead; as wax melts before the fire, so will you melt, unclean spirit, you and all your powers and all your helpers and all the powers of the enemy, before the bearer of this writing (…), in the name of the living and eternal God, and by the intercession of our Lady the Virgin Mary, Mother of God and ever-virgin, of Saint Thecla, equal to the apostles and first woman martyr, patron of the monastery of Maaloula, and of all the saints who have pleased You from the ages. Amen.
Remember those we have not named, with the intercessions of the Innocents, the intercession of Saint Cyprian, author of this prayer, and of all the holy men and women, and the holy and righteous Joachim and Anne, ancestors of God Jesus: heal all the children of baptism and the bearer of this writing (…).
This prayer is also called “the Amulet of Cyprian”; it delivers from sorcery, rescues from obstacles and from demons, and drives evil spirits away from the one over whom it is read, the one who carries it and the one who keeps it in their home.
