Dear Rev. Know-It-All,

What is the history of genuflection?

Please reply!

Ben D. Nees

Genuflection goes back in pagan use to pre Christian days.  It was a common form of reverence to kings and emperors.  It did not come into common use in the Church until possibly the year 1000 AD when it had lost its pagan associations and, in the west, had begun to replace the profound bow as a sign of reverence to the presence of the Lord.  Possibly, Christ was increasingly thought of as the heavenly monarch. This certainly is reflected in medieval Christian art. 

The genuflection is perhaps an extension of the gesture of kneeling which is very ancient indeed.  Jesus fell to his knees in the garden of Gethsemane and we see the gesture of kneeling in prayer reflected throughout both Old and New Testaments.  Jesus says to the woman at the well that the Father seeks worshipers in the spirit and truth. 

The world the Scripture uses (you guessed it) in Greek is proskynein, which literally means to bow one’s whole body to the floor, to prostrate oneself, and to kiss the feet or the hem of the garment or the ground before the one being reverenced.  A whole lot more demonstrative than a simple genuflection!

Why all the excitement about gestures, whether kneeling or standing or bowing etc.? 

C.S. Lewis makes the point in his Screwtape Letters (A book I heartily recommend) that we are not souls trapped in bodies.  We are incarnate spirits.  What I do with my  body I do with my soul. 

To bow, to kneel, to bend the knee are all gestures of submission.  I cannot defend myself when I am on my knees.  It is a gesture that means I am absolutely open to the will and power of God.  So, to kneel and to genuflect are very appropriate gestures before Christ whom we claim as King of all.

Rev. Know-It-All