This is the definitive definition of idolatry. If we look after the widows and the orphans for the sake of being praised, it's idolatry, because we are coveting praise and coveting is idolatry:
Colossians 3:5NET Bible 5So put to death whatever in your nature belongs to the earth: sexual immorality, impurity, shameful passion, evil desire, and greed which is idolatry.
So to define idolatry:
Any action coveting any thing is idolatry
The following action in which the person is asking for salvation help from other believers is IDOLATRY:
Troparion of the Holy Hieromartyr Autonomus in Tone IV —
As thou didst share in the ways of the apostles/ and didst occupy their throne,/ thou didst find thine activity to be a passage to divine vision,/ O divinely inspired one./ Wherefore, ordering the word of truth,/ thou didst suffer for the Faith even to the shedding of thy blood.// O hieromartyr Autonomus, entreat Christ God, that our souls be saved.
Salvation is not gained by someone requesting God to save you.
The way God saves is by serving Him. This means repenting, changing your mind that working for food and shelter is essential for you and believing serving God is essential for you:
Matthew 4:4NET Bible
But he answered, "It is written, 'Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"
Deuteronomy 8:3"He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.
When we serve God and receive His kingdom, all the other things are provided to us.
The idea that there prayers of other believers cause God to cleanse us of sin is pagan. We are cleansed of sin by the proofs that God is dependable, convincing us to serve Him. Joshua and Caleb were convinced. The rest of Israel was not:
Hebrews 3Net Bible7Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,
“Oh, that today you would listen as he speaks!
8“Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of testing in the wilderness.
9“There your fathers tested me and tried me, and they saw my works for forty years.
10“Therefore, I became provoked at that generation and said, ‘Their hearts are always wandering and they have not known my ways.’
11“As I swore in my anger, ‘They will never enter my rest!’”
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