Preces

In Christian liturgical worship, Preces (Latin for 'prayers'; /ˈpriːsiːz/ PREE-seez), also known in Anglican prayer as the Suffrages or Responses,^[1] describe a series^[2] of short petitions said or sung as versicles and responses by the officiant and the gathered worshippers respectively. Versicle-and-response is one of the oldest forms of prayer in Christianity, with its roots in Hebrew prayers during the time of the Temple in Jerusalem.^[3]^{[better source needed]} In many prayer books the versicles and responses comprising the preces are denoted by special glyphs:^[4]

Versicle: ℣, a letter V crossed by an oblique line – Unicode 2123, HTML entity ℣
Response: ℟, a letter R crossed by an oblique line – Unicode 211F, HTML entity ℟

^ Brench, Matthew (20 February 2019). "The Suffrage in the Daily Office". The Saint Aelfric Customary. Retrieved 8 April 2022.
^ Preces. Vol. 1. Oxford University Press. 2001. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.22278.
^ "Psalm 136, King James Bible". Wikisource. Retrieved 9 January 2015.
^ Webb, Stephen (2018). "Versicle - ℣". Clash of Symbols: A ride through the riches of glyphs. Springer. p. 40. ISBN 9783319713502. Retrieved 12 December 2018.