Why do we have our homes blessed?

Orthodox Christians have prayers of blessing for just about everything. From religious articles such as icons and vestments, to things like fields, flowers, barns, and animals. We even bless cars, boats and journeys. It is also our custom to bless our homes each year. Buy why?

Certainly everything that our All-good God created was good—in fact, we are told it was “very good” (Gen. 1:31). But when Adam and Eve were deceived by the devil and rejected God, they were cut off from the source of life and all of creation fell with them into an abyss of sin and corruption. Yet, although we turned from Him, God did not abandon us and when the fullness of the time was come, He sent forth his Only-begotten Son to renew all things.

This renewal is celebrated at the feast of our Lord’s Theophany and the Great Blessing of the Waters on the eve and day of the feast. Throughout these holy days, all of the sacred readings and hymns confess God’s manifestation and real presence in His creation once again. And when the Priest blesses with the Precious and Life-giving Cross calling the Holy Spirit to descend once again upon the waters, the world’s primal element is consecrated anew and the entire cosmos is given back to God once more.

Because our homes, however, cannot be brought to the Church, the Church—through the Priest—brings this “Jordan Water” to our homes. There, the service of blessing, which began in the Church, is finished with the sprinkling of these sanctified waters in our homes. For, just as man’s heart is an arena of spiritual warfare, so also is the home. Knowing this, the Church, as a loving and wise mother, prescribes these annual house blessings in order to help us in our daily struggle by sanctifying our private dwellings and tangibly bringing the grace of God into our lives. “O Christ our God, Who hast appeared and hast enlightened the world, glory be to Thee!”