Prayers

Gloria Patri

Doxology Prayers

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "Gloria Patri." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://divinity.interactivelion.com/prayers/gloria-patri.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). Gloria Patri. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://divinity.interactivelion.com/prayers/gloria-patri

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-gloria-patri,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {Gloria Patri},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://divinity.interactivelion.com/prayers/gloria-patri},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

Origin Fourth century, its Trinitarian wording sharpened during the Arian controversy

The Gloria Patri, the Lesser Doxology, gives glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Its coordinated form, naming the three persons side by side with the same glory, spread in the fourth century, when the wording of doxologies became a battleground of the Trinitarian controversies and the church's prayer was aligned with its creed. Appended to every psalm in Christian use, it turns the psalter of Israel into Trinitarian prayer, and it recurs wherever Christians count prayers, most familiarly after each decade of the rosary.

Facts

Origins

Origin Period

Fourth century, its Trinitarian wording sharpened during the Arian controversy 1

Language

Latin 1

Practice

Frequency

Several times a day 1

Recited after psalms throughout the Divine Office and in wider Christian liturgy

Attributions

Tradition

Christianity 1

Use

What It Is Used For

Praise 1

Status

Canonical Status

Canonical 1

Learn More

The Lesser Doxology

Doxologies, short bursts of glory giving, are older than Christianity, and the early church inherited the habit from the synagogue. The Gloria Patri's particular history begins in the fourth century, when the wording of such formulas became doctrinally loaded. Older Christian doxologies had often run glory to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit, wording the Arian party could read as making the Son a mere instrument. The formula that gives glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, with one preposition binding the three persons in one glory, asserted their equality every time it was sung, and writers of the period defended precisely that coordinated wording as the church's tradition.

The clause that follows in Western use, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, answers the Arian slogan that there was a time when the Son was not, eternity built into a congregational refrain. The Eastern churches say the same first half but continue differently, both now and ever, and unto ages of ages, and the two halves together show what the Gloria Patri is, a creed compressed to a couplet, small enough to end a psalm and precise enough to end an argument.

The Hinge of the Psalter

The Gloria Patri's liturgical work is structural. Appended to every psalm and canticle in the Divine Office, it acts as the hinge on which the psalter of Israel turns into Christian prayer, each psalm ending by lifting its words into the praise of the Trinity. A monastic community that prays the full office therefore sings it dozens of times a day, and its opening was long the standard versicle with which the hours themselves began. The rosary gave it a second universal home, ending each decade, so that the prayer belongs equally to the choir stall and the kitchen chair. The tradition also knows when to fall silent.

In the old Roman rite the Gloria Patri was omitted in the last two weeks of Lent and in Masses and offices of the dead, its note of glory suspended in mourning, a silence as expressive as the singing. Music has carried the text everywhere psalmody has gone. Every Gregorian psalm tone ends with a formula for it, Anglican chant inherited the habit through the Book of Common Prayer's Glory be to the Father, and choral settings of psalms and canticles almost invariably crown themselves with a doxology movement, so that the Lesser Doxology is, by sheer repetition, among the most frequently sung texts in the history of music.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Belongs to Tradition

African Methodist Episcopal Church

Kept in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first denomination in the United States founded by Black people.

African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church

Kept in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.

Anglican Communion

Kept across the provinces of the Anglican Communion.

Anglicanism

The Gloria Patri follows each psalm and canticle at Morning and Evening Prayer.

Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings

Armenian Apostolic Church

Kept in the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Christian Methodist Episcopal Church

Kept in the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.

Christianity

Source A Dictionary of HymnologyJohn Julian (editor)

Church of Cyprus

Kept in the Church of Cyprus, autocephalous since the Council of Ephesus in 431.

Church of England

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes.

Church of Greece

Kept in the Church of Greece.

Church of Ireland

Kept in the Church of Ireland.

Church of Sweden

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did.

Church of the Nazarene

Kept in the Church of the Nazarene, which stands in the Wesleyan holiness line.

Coptic Orthodoxy

Kept in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.

Eastern Orthodoxy

The doxology closes the psalms and the kathismata throughout the daily cycle, in the form without the Filioque.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)

Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople

Kept in the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the see of first honour among the Orthodox churches.

Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church

Kept in the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church

Kept in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Free Methodist Church

Kept in the Free Methodist Church.

Georgian Orthodox Church

Kept in the Georgian Orthodox Church, which has used its own language and script in worship since the fifth century.

Global Methodist Church

Kept in the Global Methodist Church, formed in 2022.

Greek Orthodox Church

Kept in the Greek Orthodox churches.

Lutheranism

The Gloria Patri closes the psalmody in Matins and Vespers.

Methodism

The Gloria Patri follows the psalm in the modern service books.

Oriental Orthodoxy

The doxology recurs through the daily offices of each of these churches.

Source The Egyptian or Coptic Church: A Detailed Description of Her Liturgical ServicesO. H. E. KHS-Burmester

Roman Catholicism

The Gloria Patri closes each psalm in the Liturgy of the Hours and each decade of the Rosary.

Romanian Orthodox Church

Kept in the Romanian Orthodox Church, the one Orthodox church of the Byzantine tradition whose language is Romance.

Russian Orthodox Church

Kept in the Russian Orthodox Church, in the Slavonic recension of the Byzantine books.

Serbian Orthodox Church

Kept in the Serbian Orthodox Church.

The Episcopal Church

Kept in the Episcopal Church, whose own Prayer Book descends from the Scottish rather than the English line.

The United Methodist Church

Kept in the United Methodist Church.

Ukrainian Orthodox Church

Kept in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Wesleyan Church

Kept in the Wesleyan Church.

Related To

Rosary

The Gloria Patri recurs most familiarly after each decade of the rosary.

Source A Dictionary of HymnologyJohn Julian (editor)

Trinity

The coordinated wording of the Gloria Patri, naming the three persons side by side with equal glory, was fixed amid the fourth century Trinitarian controversies.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Sources

1. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition

F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005View the Source

The Egyptian or Coptic Church: A Detailed Description of Her Liturgical Services

O. H. E. KHS-Burmester, Societe d'Archeologie Copte, Cairo, 1967View the Source

The Book of Common Prayer

Church of England; ed. Brian Cummings, Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 2011View the Source

Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church

Isabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator), Houghton Mifflin, 1906View the Source

A Dictionary of Hymnology

John Julian (editor), John Murray, 1892View the Source