Designed for any 21st-century Christian, this prayer book gathers prayers and rituals from the ancient Church (especially early Greek Christianity), re-presenting them for the use of Christians at home, in small prayer groups, cohorts, and house churches. It offers a structure of prayer offices and blessing rituals for all times of day and year, and articulates many religious needs including bereavement, house blessing, praise, worry, gratitude, and thanksgiving.

The editor and translator, John A. McGuckin, is a priest of the Orthodox Church and the Nielsen Professor of Early Christian theology and history at Union Seminary in New York and at Columbia University. He is the author of twenty scholarly works, and is internationally regarded as one of the leading expositors of ancient Christian studies today.