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PT

Prostrations

5 min

Stand before an icon. For each prostration, make the sign of the cross, kneel, touch your forehead to the ground, and rise again, saying:

O God, be merciful to me a sinner.

Or, with each prostration, the Jesus Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Keep a number you can sustain — three, twelve, or a count of the prayer rope. Where a full prostration is not possible, bow from the waist and touch the ground with your hand.

About this prayer

Prayer made with the whole body: the bows to the ground of the Byzantine tradition, each joined to a short cry for mercy.

History

The East calls the bow a *metania*, from the Greek *metanoia*, repentance: a small one bends from the waist, a great one goes down to the ground. Prostrations belong to the monastic rule of prayer and to the penitential seasons, above all Great Lent. By ancient custom, confirmed at the First Council of Nicaea, they are not made on Sundays or from Pascha to Pentecost, when the Church prays standing in the joy of the Resurrection.

How to pray it

Pray unhurriedly, letting each movement carry the words. Begin with a few and add slowly; a small number kept every day is worth more than many kept for a week. Leave them aside on Sundays and in Eastertide.

Prayers as in the corpus's Byzantine morning rule and Jesus Prayer: the [Byzantine Catholic morning rule of prayer](https://www.byzcath.org/index.php/resources/worship-prayer-old/a-rule-of-prayer?view=article&id=2705:a-morning-rule-of-prayer&catid=31) (byzcath.org); Portuguese text from the *Pequeno Devocionário Ortodoxo* (Ortodoxia.pt, 2019).