Prayer book

For other uses, see Prayer book (disambiguation).

A prayer book is a book containing prayers and perhaps devotional readings, for private or communal use, or in some cases, outlining the liturgy of religious services. Books containing mainly orders of religious services, or readings for them are termed "service books" or "liturgical books", and are thus not prayer-books in the strictest sense, but the term is often used very loosely. A religion's scriptures might also be considered prayer books as well.

The following are among the many books to which the term may loosely refer in various churches or religions, although in strict usage a prayer book is likely to mean a miscellaneous book of prayers as opposed to the standard service books as listed in the second group below:

Actual prayer books:

• Book of Common Prayer (BCP), first published in 1549 for the Church of England and has considerable literary influence in the English language
• Saint Augustine's Prayer Book, in the Episcopal Church of the United States
• Vatican Croatian Prayer Book, a Croatian vernacular prayer book
• Siddur, in Judaism

Service & liturgical books:

• Breviary or Missal, in Roman Catholicism
• Agenda (liturgy), in Lutheranism
• Common Worship, in Anglicanism
• Alternative Service Book (adopted in 1980), in the Church of England
• Directory of Public Worship, adopted in certain areas of the Church of England in the 17th century
• Book of Hours in Roman Catholicism, many of which have fine examples of Medieval art