Sep 19, 2023
“Glory be to God, Who accepts the repentance of sinners.”
~St. Mary of Egypt
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“Glory be to God, Who accepts the repentance of sinners.”
~St. Mary of Egypt
The Chotki: Our Forgotten Prayer Beads
The rosary takes fifteen minutes. Morning and evening prayer take maybe ten to twelve minutes each. The Divine Mercy Chaplet takes no more than seven minutes. Added up, I recently realized the sum total of my daily prayer life was only about forty-five minutes.
That didn’t settle very well with me. I wasn’t even giving God one hour of prayer each day? Something had to be done. And the remedy came in a set of prayer beads, but not in the form of our beloved rosary.
Referred to as “chotki” in Russian, or “komboskini” in Greek, a common name for these beaded or knotted devotional tools is the “prayer rope,” upon which the Jesus Prayer is prayed. Prayed by Christians before the sixth century, the Jesus Prayer varies slightly, but it is structurally based on Christ’s parable of the petition of the Publican who beats his breast and begs God for mercy, accusing himself as a sinful man.
The Jesus Prayer
The Jesus Prayer is “O Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
Albeit brief, this prayer does a number of important things. First, it recognizes and honors the Holy Name of Jesus. For those struggling with the sin of taking the Lord’s Name in vain, this prayer is a means of addressing that through loving reverence as opposed to disrespect.
Secondly, it identifies Jesus as the Lord, and, by association, Savior of the one praying. Thirdly, this prayer confesses Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Fourthly, and very importantly in this Jubilee Year, the prayer begs for mercy by confessing our sinfulness. The Jesus Prayer on the lips of the dying who are breathing out their last prayers is powerful, indeed. Which means it is a prayer of mercy for all of us.
A chotki may commonly have 33, 50 or up to 100 knotted cords or beads. The knots can be tied into complicated knots. It takes somewhere between 2-6 hours to tie a knotted chotki. Some monks have chotkis with 500 knots or cords. Some come with little tassels on the end, purportedly used by some to wipe away their tears of either penitence or joy.
One story from antiquity tells of a monk who used to tie simply knotted chotkis and then a demon who would untie the knots to frustrate the monk and suppress the devotion. As the story goes, his guardian angel appeared to the monk and taught him how to tie the knots in the form of a cross. The demon was unable to untie the knots from then on.
Chotkis are largely recognized as the prayer beads used by Eastern Rite Catholics as well as Eastern Orthodox, from whom the Latin Rite split by the eleventh century. But that means Christians were praying the Jesus Prayer for five hundred or more years preceding the Great Schism. And whereas Eastern Rite or Eastern Orthodox typically don’t pray the rosary, we Roman Catholics typically don’t pray with the chotki. But in asking why that is the case, a number of interesting factors came to light.
Pope Francis has been photographed wearing a chotki on his left wrist, traditionally, the preferred wrist for this devotion in the east. This way it keeps the right hand free to make the frequent Sign of the Cross in the Orthodox tradition. Additionally, Pope Francis has concelebrated the Eastern Rite Divine Liturgy as Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergolio. If he wears a chotki, he must, one would think, pray it. And why wouldn’t he pray it? It is scriptural. It is Christocentric. It is a prayer of both worship and petition. And it is a prayer of and for mercy.
My wife bought me a 100 bead chotki at our local Catholic book store. And I purchased another from St. Meinrad Monastery in Indiana. So if Roman Catholic institutions make chotkis available for purchase among the faithful, why wouldn’t we want to look into praying the Jesus Prayer with them?
The Jesus Prayer has been endorsed by St. John Chrysostom himself. Spiritual masters have advised praying this prayer constantly, dividing up the prayer in half with inhaling and exhaling. As we breathe in we pray, “O Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God,” and as we breathe out we pray, “Have mercy on me, a sinner.” Ultimately, the goal is to make the Jesus Prayer “the prayer of the heart,” prayed throughout the waking hours of the day so often that it becomes psychologically present at all times. Some Greek Orthodox monks pray it 12,000 times each day.
It is an extraordinarily peaceful and meditative experience to increase the quality and quantity of one’s prayer life. And it is nothing to work up to praying the Jesus Prayer a couple hundred times every day.
Sure, I could pray an extra rosary, and sometimes I do. But several laps around the chotki give me the rich, prayerful fifteen minutes I was looking for.
BY: DAVID LA MAR
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand in the hand of God; that shall be better to you than light and safer than a known way.”
~Metropolitan Anthony Bloom
(Image via orthochristian.com)
“Set aside half an hour out of the twenty-four to say the Prayer. Whenever you are able; but the evening is best. Say it without using the prayer rope - in supplication, pleading, and with tears. ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.’ Cultivate this, and you’ll see what fruit it brings. From half an hour, it will become an hour. And guard this hour. Whether the phone is ringing, or you have this task you need to do now, or you’re sleepy, or some blasphemy is confronting you. Nothing. Turn off the phone. Finish your tasks. Do this half hour and you’ll see. You’ve planted a little tree, and tomorrow or the day after it will bear fruit. St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil both began like this and became luminaries for the whole world. St. Symeon the New Theologian had experiences of the Uncreated Light while still a layman. He was a layman. How many laymen appear as such exteriorly, but deep down are monastics!”
~Elder Ephraim of Katounakia
(Photo © dramoor 2017 Montserrat Abbey, Catalonia, Spain)
To not derail your thread and convo with very short responses, a chotki or komboskini etc is indeed blessed, you say a prayer (or forty, my aunt gave me one with 33 knots that each knot was ''read upon'' by her forty times). Of course if you want to wear one not on wrist but neck it's 100 knots, plus each one is cross-patterned :) Also what reminded me of the Demeter captain and Dracula not being able to touch his hands is that the story behind the rope's creation is that Great Antony made the knots cross-pattered so the Devil won't be able to touch them.
That's fantastic, thank you for sharing!
Chetki "Laser lizard". #chetki_wf #workshop_fidgets #chetki #chotki https://www.instagram.com/p/CpnE4_js-cv/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
Chetki "White prince". . #chetki_wf #workshop_fidgets #chetki #chotki #chetki_handmade https://www.instagram.com/p/CmV_EN1M6fm/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
https://www.etsy.com/listing/639575194/33-bead-chotki-black-onyx-prayer-beads
33 bead Chotki. 6mm onyx beads with a red howlite cross.
Most people know what a Rosary is but few are familiar with the Eastern Catholic/Orthodox Chotki. Traditionally Chotki are made of knotted wool, but they are known to be made in a variety of beads, usually stone or semi-precious gems. Chotki, also known as Komboskini in Greek, are used by Eastern Catholics and Orthodox Christians, to keep track of how many Jesus Prayers are said and a tool to aid in meditation. Chotki can be found in various sizes, including 33 knot or bead bracelets and long 150 bead or knot ropes.