Evening Prayer: Dismantling Tyrannical Leadership

Lord of all creation, You who breathed Your own image into every human soul — hear this evening prayer.

Tonight I remember that Genesis tells us something revolutionary: You did not stamp Your imago Dei upon pharaohs alone, nor reserve Your likeness for emperors and kings. You pressed Your fingerprint into the clay of every person — the migrant worker, the silenced dissident, the forgotten widow. Every tyrant who crushes another human being is defacing a living icon of the Almighty.

The Orthodox fathers taught that each person is a window into Your glory, an icon not painted by human hands but breathed into existence by the Holy Spirit. When leaders twist their authority into domination — when they silence, manipulate, and devour the vulnerable — they are smashing stained glass through which Your light was meant to shine.

Give me the courage of the Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah, who looked Pharaoh's murderous decree in the face and quietly, stubbornly chose life. They held no swords, commanded no armies, yet their faithful disobedience unraveled an empire's cruelty from the inside out.