proskynesis

alternative proscynesis

1. historicaluncountableThe act of bowing down before a lord or ruler, especially in ancient Persia.

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

   1993, AB Bosworth, Conquest and Empire, page 285

   2 more examples

   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.

   1994, DM Lewis, John Boardman, The Cambridge Ancient History, volume IV, page 873

   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.

   2008, Eirene, volume 44, page 195

2. uncountableEastern OrthodoxyThe level of veneration properly given to God's creations rather than to God himself.

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

   2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 448

   1 more example

   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.

   1975, Karl Rahner, Encyclopedia of Theology, page 684