5 October 1998
The Pious Pastors
of the Holy Diocese of Denver
Beloved in the Lord,
In our holy Orthodox teaching and tradition the discipline of kneeling in worship has unnecessarily become a point of contention among a selected number of our people. It is almost as if the controversy of icon veneration were being revisited, but this time through the expression of kneeling. In the time of the iconoclasm the two extremes were manifested: either the icons were viciously destroyed or they were worshipped to the point of individuals communing particles of paint and wood from them for sanctification. The healthy medium of proper veneration and inspiration was ignored by the extremists.
Now we witness the practice of kneeling or not kneeling on Sunday (the Lord's Day). Some kneel not only in reverence to the Epiklesis but simultaneously out of personal repentance and contrition. Others stand almost defiantly to prove their Orthodoxy. Both expressions are dramatically abnormal and wrong.
In present-day Orthodoxy the discipline of kneeling is basically associated with repentance and contrition during the Great Fast and at other periods of abstinence. Kneeling is also, however, an act of reverence to one who is in authority or is higher in a particular station in life Ð either human or divine.
In the Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom (Saint Sophia) in Constantinople, one mosaic depicts Justinian the Great kneeling in worship and offering the Great Cathedral to Christ. Obviously this expression of kneeling cannot be one of repentance or contrition, but of fervent love, dedication, and commitment.
Many icons show God's angels kneeling before the throne of Christ not out of repentance, but before the awesome majesty of the enthroned Christ. When the women who went to the tomb on the First Day of the week (Sunday) recognized the Risen Christ, they fell at His feet and embraced Him Ð not out of contrition, but out of love. (Matthew 28:9)
From these few examples among many that can be cited, we must come to the determination that there are at least two kinds of kneeling in one's religious experiences: one out of sadness, contrition, and repentance, and the other out of joy, exultation, and worship. Even with the shedding of tears, sometimes they indicate sorrow and sometimes they are expressions of joy.
In the liturgical life of the Church, why are we expected to kneel on a Sunday when an ordination takes place, but we do not kneel when the same Holy Spirit descends to consecrate the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ? Or, should we say that if we do not kneel for the consecration of the Holy Gifts, why should we kneel for an ordination or even on the Sunday of Pentecost as we do? Should we not be consistent?
When Archbishop Michael of blessed memory sent an encyclical on kneeling at the Epiklesis during the Sunday Divine Liturgy in the early 1950s, he explained, not legalistically, but pastorally that the two minutes of kneeling during this time was in respectful awe at the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Holy Gifts on the Altar Table.
Whether we stand or kneel at the Epiklesis on Sundays, we should do so with sincerity of heart and humility. It should never be as an outward show of piety (kneeling) or of our Orthodoxy (standing). This is audacity.
In comparing the act of kneeling with the consumption of food during periods of fasting and abstinence because both have to do with self-discipline, Saint Paul tells us, "But food does not commend us to God, for neither if we eat are we the better, nor if we do not eat are we the worse. (1 Corinthians 8:8) Elsewhere Saint Paul is even more emphatic. He says, "Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things. For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables. Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats; for God has received him. (Romans 14:1-3)
Parallel to the discipline regarding food consumption, we can correctly say that the kneeling or the not kneeling by the faithful in the Sunday Divine Liturgy must never become contentious among the faithful. If one kneels at the Epiklesis it must not be out of repentance, but out of awesome joyfulness and fervent love that the Holy Spirit comes upon us. If another stands during the same time, he should not do so like an Orthodox spectator in judgment of the kneeling sinners, but must always stand with bowed neck and head and eyes closed or lowered, rejoicing in God's love through the descent of the Holy Spirit Who comes to sanctify all who are in a prayerful stance in the house of God and especially to change the bread and the wine into the sanctifying Body and Blood of the Lord.
Orthodoxy is not legalistic; it is pastoral.
With Paternal Blessings,
+Metropolitan Isaiah
Presiding Hierarch
of
the Diocese of Denver
TO BE PRINTED IN THE PARISH BULLETINS