On prayer beads including the Rosary
Popped into the Eastern Orthodox message boards yesterday to offer some history and perspective.

To answer the Orthodox objection to the Rosary* given on principle, it’s fairly obvious that the events meditated upon are directly from scripture and common Catholic dogma (not ‘the life of Krishna’ or suchlike) which is enough of a safeguard.

So while one can successfully argue for not introducing it in order to maintain the integrity of a rite (the Christian East doesn’t need Western-style meditation) of course there’s really nothing wrong with the Dominican Rosary!

And there are Western chaplets such as the Divine Mercy one that don’t involve meditation.

*I don’t advocate hybridising rites (and Rome agrees) but this page still offers some good material on this devotion and a good sample of Byzantine Rite prayers as well.