WHY DO WE DO THAT? THE IMPORTANCE OF BOWING AND PROSTRATING DURING CHURHC SERVICES AND AT HOME
“Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.”
– James 4:10
Jason Caros | July 27, 2023
Orthodoxy is known for its beautiful, solemn and timeless worship. Orthodox faithful are called to honor and offer reverence to God in their liturgical services and personal devotions, corporately and individually, and to glorify God in all they say and do—they are to glorify God with their lips (PS 63:3) as well as with their bodies (Romans 12:1, 1 Cor. 6:20). In our contemporary age; however, some elements of Orthopraxis are notably absent from corporate worship, whether due to the influences from other types of churches, or some other cause, I do not know, but as members of a church that has been coming out of what some church historians have called “The Western Captivity” and that is reclaiming its historic doctrine and practice in its fullness, it is important to revive some lost elements of our historic worship, not only for the sake of doing what others have done before us, but because they are essential aspects of proper glory, thanksgiving and worship (i.e. they are “Orthodox”). For the purpose of this short reflection, I will focus mostly on bows and prostrations, both under-practiced aspects of worship by many Orthodox faithful, at least during church services, but I will reference others. First, I will discuss why bodily worship is important and how our senses are enlivened in our worship, and then I will describe bows and prostrations and when worshipers do them.
Saint Augustine of Hippo said “A Christian is an Alleluia from head to foot.” Put another way, as Christians we worship and praise God with our entire being. Unlike the ancient Gnostics and Platonists, unlike the eighth and ninth century Iconoclasts, unlike some adherents of our modern hedonistic culture, who believe that the flesh either doesn’t matter or that it is evil and ought to be rejected, Orthodox Christians believe the Holy Scriptures and follow the unbroken teaching of the Church, which inform us that we are persons made with a human nature, and that we consist of physical bodies and souls and that are both necessary and good. As a result, what we do with our bodies truly matters and what we experience through our senses matters truly.
Historic Christian worship is multisensory because we are both spirit and flesh—we are sensory creatures who experience and gain knowledge and understanding through our senses. It is also true that one is saved or damned through the senses. In our daily lives we see, hear, smell, touch, and taste, all through our physical sensory organs, and we perceive and intuit through our intellect and (spiritual) heart. Why would it be any different when it comes to worship? God created us this way and uses physical means to bring us into communion with Him. In this regard, Saint John of Damascus taught in his seminal treatises found in On The Divine Images, that God honors matter because the Creator of matter became material, and through matter He effected our salvation. In short, matter matters! It is good and comes from God. Worship, and salvation, is not simply a matter of the mind.
Whether during church services or during prayer in the home, all of our physical senses are, or should be used and enlivened, in addition to the non-material and spiritual senses, which are seven in number:
1) When it comes to sight, we see beautiful architecture, Icons, liturgical items and vestments, woodworking and metals, and candles. These beautiful, symbolic and meaningful objects stimulate us and draw us closer to God, helping us to fit into the sacred space we occupy during worship.
2) When it comes to hearing, we listen to and participate in petitions, chanting, singing, readings and prayers, and we also hear the jingle of the priest’s censor. Regarding music, you most certainly know that there is a direct connection between various types of music and one’s mood or disposition. Music can foster patriotic sentiments, sadness, joy, sensuality, and it can even raise one’s ire. On the other hand, liturgical music (e.g. Byzantine, Russian, etc.) is befitting of worship. It honors God and elevates the soul in a heavenly direction; it calls the faithful to worship. Additionally, the words in the hymns are didactic and theologically rich, helping to promote and preserve the church’s age-old teachings.
3) When it comes to smell, the rich scent of incense, rose water, basil leaves, and holy myrrh elevate and direct us toward the divine and the homeland of our heart’s desire, the garden of paradise.
4) When it comes to touch, we make the sign of the cross, we kiss Icons, we are immersed and sprinkled with water, we are anointed with oil, we kneel during the Epiklesis and at other times, and we make bows and prostrations, all of which bring healing and promote affection toward God and His saints, gratitude, humility and repentance, essential virtues that help us to climb the ladder of divine ascent.
5) When it comes to taste, we consume Antidoron and Holy Water, blessed and efficacious bread and water, but most importantly, we participate in the Mystical Supper and receive the Sacrament of Sacraments, the Holy Eucharist, the precious Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Medicine of Immortality. This life-giving gift, more than any other, brings us into communion with God, and it does so through physical means, bread and wine.
Finally, we are enlivened through what some may call a sixth and seventh sense, a non-physical sense and a divinely inspired sense. We may call these percepts and spiritual intuition.
6/7) When it comes to percepts and intuition, our sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste, when engaged in good and holy ways, help us to gain clarity (perception), and they open us up to God’s energies or graces so that we can eventually come to self-knowledge and true knowledge of the Divine—knowledge that is beyond reason and which resides in what the church fathers refer to as the nous or heart. In this, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the author of The Little Prince, was on to something when he wrote: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” We may call the heart the center of our being or the eye of our soul, the place of spiritual intuition, where the mind enters the heart.
Considering the context of our sense experiences, which has implications for all of the pious practices of our Orthodox faith, I turn specifically to the ascetic practice of bowing and prostrating before God. I submit that these are essential Orthodox practices and we would all do well to do them and to increase their volume over time. One difficulty with these practices is that we live in an age when bowing or prostrating is seen, on the one hand as odd or antiquated, and on the other hand as beneath a people who live in a “free society.” After all, servants or subjects bow down to monarchs. Free citizens bow down to no one.
Well, the fact of the matter is that we really do owe obeisance to a divine monarchy—the Father Who is the Fountainhead of the Holy Trinity, the Only-Begotten King of Glory, and the Heavenly King, Comforter and Spirit of Truth! We are servants of the Lord and believers have been bowing and prostrating before God for thousands of years, following the example of the angels in heaven (Isaiah 6:2-4, Rev. 7:11-12). There are scores of verses in the Bible illustrating this common practice, beginning with the very first book. Here are a few from the Old Testament. In Genesis we see that Abraham bowed down before The Lord at Mamre, in reference to what we Orthodox call The Hospitality of Abraham (Gen. 18:1-3). A little further in the same account, Abraham’s nephew Lot also bowed before the heavenly messengers at Sodom (Gen. 19:1). In the Psalms, King David describes a call to worship where the faithful are invited to bow and kneel: “Come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He is our God…” (Psalm 95:6). In the book of Nehemiah, we can see that “…Ezra blessed the Lord the great God. And all the people answered, “Amen, Amen!” while lifting up their hands; then they bowed low and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground” (8:6). Finally, in the prophetic book of Isaiah, the seer proclaims, “And it shall be from new moon to new moon, And from sabbath to sabbath, All mankind will come to bow down before Me,” says the Lord” (Isaiah 66:23).
Turning to the New Testament, in his Nativity description, Matthew tells us the following about the magi: “After coming into the house they saw the Child with Mary His mother; and they fell to the ground and worshiped Him. Then, opening their treasures, they presented to Him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh” (2:11). Saint Paul also emphasizes bowing in his letter to the Philippians when he says: “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (2:9-11). By bowing, prostrating and kneeling before God, we continue a righteous practice that was abundant in the Old and New Testament periods, and that has been maintained and observed by Orthodox Christians to the present day.
So, how do bows and prostrations help us to grow in our faith, and when should we bow and prostrate? Besides reverencing our true King in heaven, something we ought to do because our Holy God is worthy of our obeisance, even though He doesn’t need it, bowing and prostrating actually helps us because these acts are a means to our holiness. They are part of a larger array of ascetic practices that help us to focus and direct our thoughts away from ourselves and to God and toward His truth, goodness and beauty, to fight against passions, to self-govern and to live as God intended us to live, virtuously and in communion with Him.
To help explain, I turn to an insight from modern psychology, one that is consistent with ancient understandings about the nature of man, which posits that “We choose our actions and our thoughts but we cannot choose our feelings and physiology; they follow our actions and our thoughts” (Glaser, “Choice Theory Psychology”). Our feelings and physiology follow our actions and thoughts! So, by praying, bowing and prostrating before God (thoughts and actions), our affections and bodily dispositions can be turned toward God. Think about this in reverse. If we think negative and evil thoughts and act accordingly, then our desires and dispositions will become sinful, and we will turn against God. Conversely, by directing our thoughts and actions to God and Godly pursuits, our desires and dispositions turn to God. It is simply practical wisdom.
In the cases of bowing and prostrating at home or during church services, we honor God and our actions have positive consequences for us—they help direct our affections and dispositions to the proper object of our heart’s desire, The Lord, and they also promote humility, modesty and repentance in us, chief virtues that elevate our souls. Without these virtues, we will not progress in holiness. While participating in liturgical services with others, by making the sign of the cross, bowing, prostrating and kneeling, we also do something important in common with other members of the Body of Christ. It is part of the church’s koinonia, or communion-forming activity.
How and when should we bow or make prostrations? First, it is important to distinguish between the two related forms of obeisance. Bows can range from a small movement of the upper body and neck, such as bowing one’s head when a priest provides a blessing during a service, to a deeper bow during personal prayers at home or during a service when praying a prayer like this one: “Come, let us worship and bow down before our King and God. Come, let us worship and bow down before Christ, our King and God. Come, let us worship and bow down before Christ Himself, our King and God.” In this case, it is customary to make three deep bows, one after each third of the prayer followed by the sign of the cross. With this type of bow, you bend down so that your head and body are bent over nearly parallel or horizontal to the floor while your legs are nearly straight (visualize your body forming something close to a lower case “r”). While you bow you can keep your hands close to your body and then make the sign of the cross when you rise; some people will touch their right hand toward the floor and make the sign of the cross when they rise. This bow assumes that one is physically able to do so. If a person has a physical ailment or is elderly to the point where it is not possible, then one ought to bow only as much as one is able, and this is perfectly fine.
A prostration occurs when you begin making a deep bow, but continue by kneeling down and touching or almost touching your forehead on the floor, and then rising back up on your feet and making the sign of the cross. Prostrations are done both at home and in church, and tend to increase in number during Lenten periods, Holy Week and on certain feast days such as the Elevation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross in September. At home and during Lenten services, the Prayer of Saint Ephraim is accompanied by prostrations, but they are made at other times as well—it is good for each person to speak with one’s spiritual father about how often and when prostrations ought to be done at home as part of one’s rule of prayer and Orthopraxis. Prostrations are not generally done during Divine Liturgy, but in the other services where they are more common, they may be difficult to do in some churches with pews because there will likely not be enough space to make prostrations (one of the downsides of pews). If there is not enough space, deep bows can be made instead of prostrations.
All in all, bows will be more common than prostrations, especially in church services. With this in mind, I will focus more on bowing during communal worship. During the Divine Liturgy and other services such as Vespers or Paraklesis services, there are multiple times when it is proper and right to bow down. First, upon entering the narthex or departing from the church, it is customary to bow slightly or deeply and make the sign of the cross. When venerating Icons, in the narthex or nave, it is also customary to bow, cross yourself, and kiss the Icon and then bow and cross yourself again. Regarding how many bows one ought to make, there are variations in practice, but a common one is to bow and make the sign of the cross twice before kissing the Icon and then bow and make the sign of the cross one more time afterwards for a total of three. By the way, the sign of the cross is made afterwards as a sealing or completing action, as a bow or prostration is a bodily accompaniment to prayer, and making the cross, while also a physical act, is an important and powerful prayer.
During the services, is it customary to bow and make the sign of the cross each time the Thrice Holy Hymn is chanted or sung: “Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal have mercy on us.” During the Small Entrance, when the priest or deacon carries the Gospel book from the nave and soleas into the holy altar, we hear the following hymn, “Come, let us worship and bow down before Christ. Save us, O Son of God, Who art risen from the dead, we sing to You, Alleluia,” and the people make one bow followed by the sign of the cross.
When the petitions are made for the catechumens, the catechumens should bow when prompted by the priest or deacon: “Catechumens, bow your heads to the Lord.” There are multiple instances during services when the priest will bless all of the people and say, “Peace be with you all,” and the people respond, “And with your spirit,” or he will bless and say, “And the mercies of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, be with you all,” and the people respond, “And with your spirit.” After these blessings, and others, including times when the priest or deacon censes the people, the people should bow their heads and receive the priestly blessings with gratitude and humility.
One of the most reverent periods of the liturgy occurs after the singing of “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord Sabaoth, heaven and earth are filled with Your glory…” and during the Holy Anaphora prayer when the priest prays the words of The Lord Jesus Christ at the Mystical Supper. He says first, “Receive, eat, this is My Body, which is broken for you for the remission of sins.” The priest bows and makes the sign of the cross, as do the people. Then the priest prays, “Likewise, after partaking of the supper, He took the cup, saying, Drink of this, all of you; this is My Blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins.” Again, he bows and makes the sign of the cross, as do the people. It is appropriate to note here that in most instances, when the priest bows, so should the people (an exception would be when he prays for the forgiveness of his own sins before Holy Communion and quietly prays a priestly prayer that may include the words “…God be merciful to me a sinner.”
Sometimes, as in one case during the Divine Liturgy, the people will be explicitly prompted to bow, such as after The Lord’s Prayer when the priest says, “Let us bow our heads to the Lord” and the people respond, “To You, O Lord.” The prayer that the priest prays after this prompting reveals why we are bowing at the time. He prays:
“We give thanks to You, invisible King, Who by Your boundless power fashioned the universe, and in the multitude of Your mercy brought all things from nothing into being. Look down from heaven, O Master, upon those who have bowed their heads before You; for they have not bowed before flesh and blood, but before You, the awesome God. Therefore, O Master, make smooth and beneficial for us all, whatever lies ahead, according to the need of each: Sail with those who sail; travel with those who travel; heal the sick, Physician of our souls and bodies.” [emphasis added]
Finally, and importantly, when the priest brings out the Holy Chalice containing the consecrated body and blood of Christ, the Holy Eucharist, and says “With the fear of God, faith, and love, draw near,” it is most appropriate to bow to Christ Who is mystically present in the Eucharist and to make the sign of the cross, and to bow and make the sign of the cross again as you approach the chalice to receive Holy Communion. Here you may follow the practice of bowing twice before receiving and once after receiving Communion, but there is no hard and fast prescription (note that it is very important not to bow and/or make the sign of the cross just in front of the chalice in order to avoid bumping into the priest’s hands or the chalice).
All of the aforementioned examples of bowing or prostrating have God as the object of worship. It is also common; however, to bow when commemorating the Theotokos and other saints when the priest or deacon offers the following petition: “Commemorating our most holy, pure, blessed, and glorious Lady, the Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary, with all the saints, let us commend ourselves and one another and our whole life to Christ our God.” During this petition the chanters chant this verse softly, “Most Holy Theotokos save us,” and the people respond to the petition with “To You, O Lord.” Additionally, during a Paraklesis or Akathist service, there will be many bows made to the Theotokos, specifically when the chanters sing, “Most Holy Theotokos save us,” throughout the service. Why is it that we bow to the Theotokos or any saint for that matter? First, it is important to distinguish between veneration, or honor, and worship. In Greek, the language of the scriptures and church fathers, there are multiple words used for worship but they have different meanings and emphases. Saint John of Damascus famously explains in his defense of venerating Icons that proskynesis, or honor, is appropriately given to people, places and objects throughout the Holy Scriptures (i.e. created things), whereas latreia is worship that is only reserved for God (i.e. The Creator of Matter). So, when we bow to honor the Virgin Mary, Saint John the Baptist or any saint, or even our Archbishop, we are not worshipping them, for worship is directed to God alone; instead, we honor them for their holiness and communion with God, or for their divinely appointed hieratic office. Beyond this, the Theotokos has a unique and vital role in our faith. The title Theotokos almost says it all, but when you look at her iconographic depictions, she is often seated on a throne in heaven and this is because she is the Mother of God (Theotokos) and Queen Mother—the latter title refers to both a highly honored Old Testament role and a heavenly one. In ancient Jerusalem in the Kingdom of Israel, if we were to walk into King Solomon’s palace and fail to bow and give honor to the Queen Mother, that would have been considered dishonorable and an insult to the king. Orthodox Christians give proper honor, not worship, to the Theotokos and all the saints and angels in heaven, and by extension we show honor to our Lord, the One True God and King of all.
The examples above illustrate some notable times when the faithful bow or make prostrations, but before concluding it may be helpful to provide a few recommendations about doing them in church. First, keep in mind that there are small variations in practice from place to place (e.g. in Greek, Romanian, and Russian churches, etc.) so when visiting other churches, you might follow the advice from St. Ambrose to St. Monica and “Do as the Romans do.” If visiting for a short period, it might be best to maintain your normal practice, but if visiting longer term, you may temporarily adopt the practice of the local community. Second, while bowing and prostrating are important, do not feel as though you are being compliant to someone’s external rule. In other words, there is no worship leader who directs or supervises other worshipers as they participate in worship. If you miss a bow, don’t expect a lighting bolt to strike. If you have pulled your back, refrain from bowing until you are healed. If you are elderly and lack range of motion, only bow or prostrate as you are able. If you are personally moved or inspired to bow at a particular point in a service, go ahead and bow. If you are not sure when to bow and end up bowing when no one else does, or if others bow and you do not, do not worry about it. As you bow and make prostrations over time, you will become more accustomed to doing them and develop a pious habit. Additionally, it doesn’t matter what other people are doing, and this takes me to the third point—we are not supposed to bow and make prostrations in order to be seen by others. In other words, this is not a performance and we should avoid being like the Pharisee in Our Lord’s parable about the Pharisee and the Publican (tax-collector). The Pharisee was the “religious” one of the two inside the temple, who “…stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get’” (Luke 18:11-12). Christ warned against this form of pride, lack of repentance and showmanship when he praised the humble tax collector and criticized the Pharisee: “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted” (18:14). Bows and prostrations, and all other forms of worship, are not meant to increase our stature in the eyes of others, nor should we look down on others who may not do them or do them as often as we do. They should never be done for show or to compete, but to honor and glorify God, no matter who is watching.
To conclude, we human beings are corporeal creatures that live in and are affected by matter and physical activity. We worship the God Who created us with our entire being—mind, body and spirit, and among the pious and ascetic practices that bring us into communion with our Creator are two forms of obeisance that have been observed since the time that God called Abraham out of the land of his ancestors in Mesopotamia and made him a promise that his descendants would be as numerous at the stars in the sky. While bowing and prostrating have fallen out of practice in modern times, Holy Orthodoxy has maintained them and other practices in order to preserve the fullness of our faith, to cultivate in each believer a grateful, humble and penitent disposition towards God, and a holy and pure life pleasing to God. My hope is that as Orthodox Christians we may live well, with an Orthodox phronema and receive the blessings Saint Paul describes in his letter to the Ephesians:
“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (3:14-19).
-Jason Caros is a husband, father and classical school headmaster. He is a cradle Orthodox Christian who taught classes on Orthodox theology, worship and spirituality to high school students and adults at his former parish in Orlando, Florida.