proskynesis

Noun

proskynesis (uncountable)

1. (historical) The 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
   • 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
2. (Eastern Orthodoxy) The level of veneration properly given to God's creations rather than to God himself.
   • 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
   • 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