Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Prayers

The Lord's Prayer

Petition Prayers

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Origin 1 to 100 CE

The Lord's Prayer is the model prayer that Jesus taught his disciples, recorded in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and it is the most widely used prayer in Christianity across nearly every denomination. It addresses God as Father, then moves through petitions for God's name, kingdom and will, for daily bread, for forgiveness given as it is received, and for protection from trial. Its structure, moving from praise of God to human need, became the template many later Christian prayers followed. Because both Matthew and Luke record it with different wording and length, it also stands as an early example of a New Testament text transmitted in more than one form.

Facts
Origins
Origin Period
1 to 100 CE 1
Language
Koine Greek 1
Attributed Author / Compiler
Traditionally attributed to Jesus of Nazareth, taught to his disciples as a model prayer (Matthew 6:9-13, Luke 11:2-4) 1Tradition: Christianity
Use
What It Is Used For
Petition: asks for something 1
Attributions
Tradition
Christianity 1
Status
Canonical Status
Canonical 1Tradition: Christianity
Learn More
Two Gospels, One Template

The Lord's Prayer survives in two New Testament forms that scholars have long compared: Matthew's longer version, set within the Sermon on the Mount, and Luke's shorter version, given in response to a direct request from the disciples to be taught to pray. The differences, including Matthew's additional petitions and closing doxology, which most textual scholars regard as a later liturgical addition rather than part of the original text, have made the prayer a standard case study in how the Gospels transmit sayings of Jesus with variation in wording and length rather than as a single fixed quotation.

Structurally, the prayer moves from an address to God as Father through a series of petitions concerning God's name, kingdom and will, then to human need for provision, forgiveness and protection, a movement from praise to petition that later Christian liturgists frequently treated as a model for prayer generally. Its Aramaic substratum, argued for by many scholars on the basis of its rhythm and vocabulary, situates its earliest form in Jesus's own spoken teaching even though it survives only in Greek manuscript transmission. The doxology added to Matthew's version in some manuscripts, for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, echoes liturgical language found elsewhere in Second Temple Jewish prayer, which is part of why most scholars treat it as an early liturgical addition drawn from surrounding Jewish practice rather than as an interpolation invented without precedent.

A Prayer Nearly Every Christian Shares

Few texts cross denominational lines as completely as the Lord's Prayer, recited in Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant liturgies alike, though translation choices still mark real theological and historical differences, most visibly in whether English versions ask forgiveness for 'debts,' 'trespasses' or 'sins,' a divergence traceable to different translation traditions rather than to a single settled English wording. It anchors the Catholic Mass and the Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church, is said daily in monastic and lay devotion across traditions, and functions in many Protestant contexts as the default model taught to children learning to pray at all.

Ecumenical bodies in the twentieth century worked to standardize an English liturgical text usable across denominations, with partial but not universal success, since older wording remains deeply attached to particular communities' memory and identity. Its closing petition, deliver us from evil or from the evil one depending on translation, has also generated ongoing theological discussion about whether the prayer names a personal force of evil or evil in a more general sense, a debate the underlying Greek text does not fully resolve on its own.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Addressed To

Addressed to the Abrahamic God in this tradition's own language and theology.

Associated With

Jesus, Figures

The model prayer Jesus taught his disciples.

Source The Holy BibleAnonymous (multiple authors)

Attested In

Recorded in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.

Source The Holy BibleAnonymous (multiple authors)

Belongs to Tradition

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

Kept in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.

Kept across the provinces of the Anglican Communion.

The Lord's Prayer opens Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer and the communion service, and the doxology at its end entered English use through the Prayer Book.

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

Kept in the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Baptist, Denominations

The Lord's Prayer is taught and used, though the tradition's preference for free prayer means it is recited far less often in public worship than in the liturgical churches.

The Heidelberg Catechism devotes its last fourteen questions to the Lord's Prayer, and the Reformed tradition treats it as the pattern of all prayer rather than as a text to be recited.

Source The Heidelberg CatechismZacharias Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus (traditional attribution)

Kept in the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.

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

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

The Lord's Prayer is used.

Kept in the Church of Greece.

Kept in the Church of Ireland.

Kept in the Church of Scotland, the established Presbyterian church of that country.

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

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

Kept in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.

The Lord's Prayer is used, in a body that otherwise prefers free prayer.

Kept in the Dutch Reformed tradition, which holds the Heidelberg Catechism among its confessional standards.

The Lord's Prayer stands at the opening of almost every service in the Horologion and immediately before communion in the Divine Liturgy.

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

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

Kept in the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

Kept in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Kept in the Free Methodist Church.

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

Kept in the Global Methodist Church, formed in 2022.

Kept in the Greek Orthodox churches.

The Small Catechism explains the Lord's Prayer petition by petition and sets it in the household as well as in the church.

The Lord's Prayer is said at every service of Word and Table and at baptism.

Source The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist ChurchUnited Methodist Churchthe holders' own account

The Lord's Prayer is used in the liturgy.

Kept in the National Baptist Convention of America International.

The Lord's Prayer opens every hour of the Agpeya and each of the corresponding offices in the Armenian, Syriac and Ethiopian books.

The Shorter Catechism ends with the Lord's Prayer, and Presbyterian children learned its petitions by heart along with the commandments and the creed.

Source The Westminster Confession of FaithWestminster Assemblythe holders' own account

Kept in the Progressive National Baptist Convention.

The Lord's Prayer is treated as the summary of the whole gospel, and the last part of the Catechism is a commentary on its seven petitions.

Source Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd editionHoly Seethe holders' own account

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

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

Kept in the Serbian Orthodox Church.

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

Kept in the United Methodist Church.

The Lord's Prayer stands where the Byzantine books put it.

Kept in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Kept in the Wesleyan Church.

Originates in Language

English, Languages

The prayer is transmitted in English.

Sources
1. The Holy Bible
Anonymous (multiple authors), Robert Barker, 1611View 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
Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church
Isabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator), Houghton Mifflin, 1906View the Source
The Westminster Confession of Faith
Westminster Assembly, 1646the holders' own accountView the Source
The Book of Common Prayer
Church of England; ed. Brian Cummings, Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 2011View the Source
The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church
United Methodist Church, The United Methodist Publishing Housethe holders' own accountView the Source
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd edition
Holy See, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997the holders' own accountView the Source
The Heidelberg Catechism
Zacharias Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus (traditional attribution), Elector Frederick III of the Palatinate, Heidelberg, 1563View the Source
The Holy Bible, American Standard Version (1901), verse-per-line text
American Revision Committee, eBible.org (digital edition), 1901Matthew 6:9-13View the Source
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