The Psalter

Oversimplified

• The 150 Psalms — Israel's inspired prayer-book — which became and remain the backbone of Orthodox worship.
• Christians pray the Psalms as the voice of Christ and of His Body, seeing Him prophesied throughout.

Summary

The Psalter (the Book of Psalms) is the collection of 150 hymns and prayers, many ascribed to David. It runs the whole range of the soul before God — praise, lament, repentance, thanksgiving, longing. In Orthodox practice the entire Psalter is divided into twenty kathismata and chanted through each week (twice in Lent), and Psalms saturate every service.

The prayer-book of the Church

The New Testament reads many Psalms of Christ — His Passion (Ps 22), Resurrection (Ps 16), and reign (Ps 110, the most-quoted OT text in the NT). The Fathers pray the Psalms in Christ's own voice and as the Church's. St. Athanasius called the Psalter a mirror of the soul.[^1] See Liturgics, Typology in Scripture, The Torah.

[^1]: St. Athanasius, Letter to Marcellinus (on the interpretation of the Psalms).