'Come, Let us Worship and Bow Down before God our King' ; a Thorough Examination of Worship Behavior

 Let us distinguish the theological distinctions between προσκυνήσωµεν and προσπέσωµεν in the terms of NOT committing idolatry when venerating icons.

Δεῦτε προσκυνήσωµεν καὶ προσπέσωµεν τῷ Βασιλεῖ ἡµῶν Θεῷ. 

Come, let us worship and bow down before God our King. 

Δεῦτε προσκυνήσωµεν καὶ προσπέσωµεν Χριστῷ τῷ Βασιλεῖ ἡµῶν Θεῷ. 

Come, let us worship and bow down before Christ God our King. 

Δεῦτε προσκυνήσωµεν καὶ προσπέσωµεν αὐτῷ, Χριστῷ τῷ Βασιλεῖ καὶ Θεῷ ἡµῶν. 

Come, let us worship and bow down before Him, Christ our King and God.

 

In the liturgical line Δεῦτε προσκυνήσωµεν καὶ προσπέσωµεν τῷ Βασιλεῖ ἡµῶν Θεῷ, προσκυνήσωµεν and προσπέσωµεν together describe a single movement of reverent approach—inner homage (προσκυνέω) and bodily prostration (πίπτω)—which, when directed to God, is worship, but when directed to icons is understood as veneration (προσκύνησις) and not latreutic adoration. 

προσκυνήσωµεν: Inner homage, not necessarily latreia

i. Semantic and biblical range

• προσκυνέω in Greek denotes prostrating oneself, doing obeisance, or paying homage, and in Scripture is used both for the worship due to God and for gestures of deep respect offered to creatures (e.g. to kings, to Christ in His humanity).
  
  

• Because of this breadth, the Fathers of the seventh council distinguished the physical/relational act (προσκύνησις) from λατρεία: the same outward bow can be either adoration (when offered to God) or veneration (when offered relatively to saints and their images).
  
  

ii. Dogmatic distinction: προσκύνησις vs. λατρεία

• Nicaea II affirms that latreia (full adoring worship) belongs to the Trinity alone, while proskynesis can be given to icons as honor that “passes to the prototype”; the material image is not taken as a deity but as a window to the person depicted.
  
  

• Thus the verb προσκυνήσωμεν does not itself guarantee or demand latreia; what makes it idolatrous is the object and intent (treating the icon as a god), not the mere act of bowing or kissing before an image.
  
  

προσπέσωµεν: Bodily prostration as intensification

i. Lexical and liturgical nuance

• προσπίπτω (“to fall down toward/upon”) adds the gesture of falling or casting oneself down, and in Psalm 94(95):6 LXX the two verbs are already paired: Δεῦτε προσκυνήσωμεν καὶ προσπέσωμεν αὐτῷ, indicating a movement from inner homage to full bodily prostration before the Creator.
  
  

• In the liturgical formula, προσπέσωμεν underscores the totality of the body’s participation—kneeling, metanoias, full prostration—before “Christ our King and God,” and so in that context expresses true worship because its object is explicitly the divine Christ.
  
  

ii. Application around icons

• Before icons, the same bodily act (προσπέσωμεν: falling, bowing low) is performed, but Orthodox theology reads it as an act of proskynesis whose intentional reference is past the material to Christ or His saints; it is not a separate “grade” of worship but a physical intensification of the same reverent attitude.
  
  

• The key safeguard against idolatry is that neither προσκυνήσωμεν nor προσπέσωμεν before an icon is coupled with the inner conviction that the wood and paint possess divine nature or receive latreia; instead, one offers relative honor, consciously directing the mind to the prototype and reserving adoration for God alone.
  
  

Putting the two together in anti‑idolatrous practice

i. Toward God in worship texts

• In Δεῦτε προσκυνήσωµεν καὶ προσπέσωµεν τῷ Βασιλεῖ ἡµῶν Θεῷ, both verbs together signify full worship—inner and bodily—because the addressee is expressly “our King and God,” so the whole act is latreutic.
  
  

• The same verbal pair can be used in translation of Psalms and in the Liturgy without ambiguity because their immediate syntactic object is the Lord, not an image as such.
  
  

ii. Before icons in Orthodox theology

• When Orthodox faithful bow, kiss, or prostrate before an icon, they are performing προσκύνησις and (in stronger gestures) προσπίπτειν as material forms of honor that flowers into latreia only in relation to the divine Prototype, never to the icon considered in itself.
  
  

• Consequently, the theological distinction is not that προσκυνήσωμεν is “safe” and προσπέσωμεν is “idolatrous,” but that both verbs describe gestures whose moral and dogmatic quality is determined by their object (created image vs. uncreated God) and the inner distinction between venerating (προσκυνεῖν κατ’ εἰκόνα) and adoring (λατρεύειν τῇ θεότητι).