proskynesis

proskynesis

English

Alternative forms

• proscynesis

Etymology

From Ancient Greek προσκύνησις (proskúnēsis).

Noun

proskynesis (uncountable)

1. (historical) The act of bowing down before a lord or ruler, especially in ancient Persia.
   • 1993, AB Bosworth, Conquest and Empire, p. 285:

     The participants in turn drank a toast, performed proskynesis and received a kiss from the king.

   • 1994, DM Lewis & John Boardman, The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. IV, p. 873:

     Alexander, it seems, did attempt to impose proskynesis on both Greeks and Macedonians, and he aroused determined opposition, represented and articulated by Callisthenes of Olynthus.

   • 2008, Eirene, vol 44, p. 195:

     Perhaps most notably, in 66 CE, Nero accepted a formal proskynesis from the Armenian prince Tiridates, who paid a visit to him in Rome to be crowned king of Armenia.

2. (Eastern Orthodoxy) The level of veneration properly given to God's creations rather than to God himself.
   • 1975, Karl Rahner, Encyclopedia of Theology, p. 684:

     The Carolingian theologians rejected adoration of images but paid too little attention to the fine distinction between latria, the adoration due to God alone, and proskynesis, the reverence paid to the image.

   • 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin 2010, p. 448:

     It was proskynēsis which the worshipper at home or in church offered to an icon.

Usage notes

This term is not fully naturalized in English and is therefore typically italicized.