Orthodox Bible Ratings and Reviews

My 2025 (and beyond) daily commitment

This app is a big help to me, as a recent convert to the Antiochian Orthodox Church, inreading and studying the Bible daily—even though the Antiochians uses the new Gregorian calendar and this app applies the old Julian calendar, as the daily readings are mostly aligned.
I like to compare, for better understanding, the NKJV NT translation applied in the Orthodox Study Bible (Thomas Nelson/Ancient Faith Publishing) and the RSV (not the NRSV), to the NT translation in this app, and also comparing the notes in each translation.

That said, I’m not sure which NT translation this app uses, so hopefully the developers see my review and clarify that for me and other app users.

A fair review

I love this app. I even payed the extra money so that I could hear the audio book scripture. The quotes of saints and holy Fathers is nice and reminds you when you need it to stay focused on God. That being said I wish there was a feature to download the audio book scripture and listen without wifi. Also rarely, but it happens when I get a quote where I sit and think did that saint really say that? I got this quote from saint Michael The Archangel that said “being a leader doesn’t mean you have followers, it just means you go first.” I couldn’t find this quote anywhere other than some TikTok video. So clearly it wasn’t a real quote. Which bothered me a bit. Other than that I love the app. If those things were changed this app would easily be a 5 star. I find myself using my study bible at home over the app, but when I’m not at home I spend hours reading!

This App Is A Blessing

This app will help me drastically improve my prayer life & spiritual walk with Christ. The paid version is very much worth it. People need to understand that running an app like this is expensive, so that’s why there are so many ads. However, 15$ a year is nothing if your serious about building discipline for the Lord. I also don’t mind supporting an app made by fellow Orthodox brothers and sisters. Thank you, God bless.

Developer Response ,

This is one of the best reviews we have ever received. I cannot thank you enough for your kind words. We do this app voluntarily in our spare time. We have families and jobs, yet continue to keep this app going, adding new features and fixing bugs, because of kind people like you who actually appreciate it. Thank you so much for lifting us up today. May God Bless you immensely, my friend. YOU are a Blessing.

Worth the Subscription

It is inexpensive to get rid of ads and the app has a very beautiful interface. Any issues seem minor and the app is steadily improving. The main reason why I cannot give it 5 stars is because they have made an audio file for everything but Psalm 118. I cannot understand how so much work can be done to make audio files of the scriptures yet you skip one psalm because it’s the longest one. How does this make sense?

This psalm is beautiful and important. It can even be a part of peoples’ prayer rules. I hope this can get fixed soon.

Terrible App.

Don’t get me wrong, I am orthodox. The biggest flaw with this application is that it’s made to make money. You can’t read the bible unless your connected to the internet, there is an add after every button you touch, even if your connected to the internet the only thing you can do is read the bible. You can’t listen to the audio books and other stuff. God is not a means of making money. If they had just made the app completely free form subscription and advertising it would have easily been a 5 star and one of the most downloaded apps. If your going through the reviews to see if it’s worth it let me tell you it’s not. I’m being completely honest here.

Developer Response ,

Hi Abrsh21,


I am sorry to hear you are frustrated about the ads in the app. Ideally, we would not want to put ads in the Orthodox Bible, but developing and maintaining apps in the app stores costs quite a bit of money. In addition, we are a very small team of believers who work full time, do not get paid to do this, and are only able to work on it in our spare time. We do have a very low cost monthly and yearly version without any ads. It is our hope that enough people who can afford the app will buy it, help us cover the costs of maintaining the app, putting in new features, etc, and have it available free for everyone. We are a new app and still have a lot of improvements and development work to do, which is extremely expensive. Unfortunately, many apps may tell you they are free and do not have ads, but are likely hiding many of their best features from you unless you are a premium subscriber. If this is not the case, they are financially well supported by mega churches to cover all of their technology needs. Unfortunately, we do not have this kind of support. I hope this helps you understand our reasoning. Thank you and God Bless.

I’d say it is pretty good

I just recently became a catechumen in the church and this overall has helped grow closer to God I love how the app has the icon corner and audio prayers and of course if you turn it on you can get daily inspiration messages which I love but the things that I would say I dis like about the app is the adds and how a lot of the prayers and audio books for the bible are locked unless you pay which I understand because it is expensive to run an app this nice but I would definitely recommend this app.

Developer Response ,

Thank you for the review, a lot of apps are supported by mega churches with big budgets or celebrity endorsements and investments, we are not. We have no agenda except one to make it easy for every Orthodox person to follow God's word every single day. We cannot ask for donations on the app, it is against the App Store rules. Subscriptions are the only way to help us move forward with development effort of a quality app. We used to rely on ads but we are committed to removing every single one of them. We hope to unlock more features and to get more input from friends like you, let us know what you may want more of or less of. Thank you again for your time.

Ads in the Bible?!

This just seems wrong on a serious level. I can read literally any other version of the Bible through apps like YouVersion and Blue Letter. Only orthodox is excluded. And then the “free” app has ads? And not just ads…constant ads. I had to go through 3 ads just to get to a point where I could actually access any scripture…and then there’s an ad banner while I’m trying to read. And still…all this could be forgiven if I could just buy the app and be done with it. But no. It’s a subscription. This just feels shameful. This is NOT how we promote the faith. And yet I am the only negative review. Nobody else has a problem with the shameless monetization of God’s word here? I’m just in disbelief.

Developer Response ,

Hello,
I am sorry to hear you are frustrated about the ads in the app. Ideally, we would not want to put ads in the Orthodox Bible, but developing and maintaining apps in the app stores costs quite a bit of money. In addition, we are a very small team of believers who work full time, do not get paid to do this, and are only able to work on it in our spare time. We do have a very low cost monthly and yearly version without any ads. Thank you for suggesting a one time purchase; it is certainly on our radar, and we are trying to make this financially feasible. It is our hope that enough people who can afford the app will buy it, help us cover the costs of maintaining the app, putting in new features, etc, and have it available free for everyone. We are a very new app and still have a lot of improvements and development work to do, which is usually very expensive. Unfortunately, many apps may tell you they are free and do not have ads, but are likely hiding many of their best features from you unless you are a premium subscriber. If this is not the case, they are financially well supported by mega churches to cover all of their technology needs. Unfortunately, we do not have this kind of support. I hope this helps you understand our reasoning. Thank you and God Bless.

It’s good but

I actually have a premium subscription, yet it keeps trying to get me to renew now at a higher rate rather than wait until Feb of next year. Offering instead a refund for the balance of my year, but they want the full higher subscription rate now. Why couldn’t you just wait then charge the higher rate, when my subscription is up? Regardless, I’m done.

Developer Response ,

Hello and thanks for getting in touch with us. Im sorry to hear you are having this issue. The increase in price for you should not be happening. It is a pricing error we are trying to get fixed with the Apple Store. Yes, we have to raise prices every now and then aftter new features have been incorporated. However, our intention is for our users to pay the same price they originally payed when she app was purchased. Please, email us and we will get this straightened out, if you wish to keep your subscription. We have no access to your account or financial information, so we can't go in and change it. However, we can work with the store to correct your price. There are only 2 of us who voluntarily developed and maintain every part of this app. We hope you stay on this journey with us with patience and kindness, but may God Bless you whatever you decide.

KJV

I would happily pay for a yearly subscription of this app, but for one reason: I am deleting even the free version of this app because the Bible is the KJV. It’s not even the NKJV just like the actual Orthodox Study Bible, which I love. That was the whole reason I sought this out, to have access to the Orthodox Bible on my phone. This app would be perfect if the bible was NKJV and the layout of it was a little bit more user friendly like the very popular Protestant Holy Bible app, which I am forced to use though wishing I didn’t have to. I would prefer to use this one. Please please please update to the NKJV.

Frustrated

First, I do love the app and it’s great for me as I’m on the go quite a bit. The one thing I do not like and the reason for three stars is when I go to read the Bible I have to scroll down so much to get to the chapter and verse I want to read. Why can’t this app be like every other Bible app where I can choose the chapter and verse to go to and read. Too much scrolling is very annoying. Please consider fixing this as this would make it more appealing for me to subscribe for more benefits. God bless! ☦️

Developer Response ,

Thank you for reaching out for support on the Orthodox Bible and prayers app. We understand your frustration. Rhdwright, do you want to have this 'mini search' option when you are already reading the bible in the reader page? There is an option there for more menu options we can add the functionality there. If you don't have time to respond to us here, we'll add it there so it will offer easier navigation within the bible chapters. Alternatively until we release the new version there is a work around for now and you can use the 'Search' tile on the main page of the app. If you think of anything else, please let us know, we'd love to help alleviate your frustrations. Please reach out to us at our support email listed in our app store page or from the link in the settings page inside the app. You can also update this review. May God Bless you immensely!