Orthodox prayer rope
Orthodox prayer beads are first of all a tool for the Jesus Prayer: the brief invocation “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” repeated many times. Two main forms developed historically in Orthodoxy — the knotted prayer rope and the leather lestovka.
The prayer rope (komboskini, vervitsa)
The prayer rope is a cord tied with special knots instead of beads. Its Greek name is komboskini (κομποσκοίνι); in Russian it is vervitsa, or simply chyotki. Each knot is traditionally tied so that the weave forms a series of crosses, which is held to be what makes the knot a prayer.
The number of knots varies: ropes of 33, 50 and 100 knots are common, and larger ones of 150 or 300 exist, divided by large marker beads into tens or other groups. The rope ends in a knotted cross and a tassel. The classic material is wool (an allusion to the “sheep of Christ’s flock”), more rarely silk or cotton; a woolen cord is soft and silent, which matters for unobtrusive prayer.
It is used simply: the prayer (the Jesus Prayer, or for example “O Virgin Theotokos, rejoice”) is said on each knot, up to a marker or the cross. The prayer rope is especially bound to the monastic tradition of Hesychasm and is given to a monk at tonsure as a “spiritual sword.”
The lestovka
The lestovka is a distinctive form of prayer beads preserved above all among the Old Believers. It is a closed loop of leather (or fabric) with small sewn-in rolls — bobochki — counted like rungs. The name itself derives from lestvitsa, “ladder,” a symbol of spiritual ascent toward heaven.
The lestovka’s structure is strictly symbolic. The rungs are grouped by a particular count (tradition speaks of 100 main rolls plus several unequal groups at the beginning and end), with larger “steps” sewn in at the transitions. At the ends are four triangular flaps — lapostki — symbolizing the Evangelists, edged with trim.
History and meaning
Counting prayers on knots and grains has been known in Christianity since early monasticism: tradition attributes the invention of the knotted rope to the Egyptian desert fathers. The lestovka took root as a native Russian form and, after the 17th-century church schism, became a characteristic attribute of the Old Believers. Both forms remain not ornaments but working tools of focused, repeated prayer.