Introduction
We find in the canon law the custom of kissing mentioned only once, where it speaks of the kiss of peace “after the priests kiss the bishop, the people kiss one another”[1] and this kiss is the handshake, which today is confined to the priests alone in the Liturgy. The bishop would kiss the newly consecrated one with a kiss of peace, saying to him: may God be with you, just as the assembly of priests and laity would kiss the bishop with a kiss of peace after his consecration[2], and the kiss of peace means that this kind of love is what governs the relationship among the members of the Church[3]. There are not even religious laws requiring the kissing of sacred objects, except what we have inherited by the force of custom that develops through the ages[4], and there is no evidence for the kissing of the hand mixed with a religious or doctrinal concept in the history of the Church[5]. Rather, kissing has a relation to submission.
Its spread:
The custom of kissing the hand is an old social custom, and you will find it in every country. In Europe, for example, a man kisses a woman’s hand; the phenomenon of kissing the woman’s hand first arose in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries during the ceremonies of honoring kings in Spain and Britain, where it was an obligatory behavior to kiss the hand of the king and queen by guests and visitors, and it was often “a social flattery in displaying the rank of some“[6]and it is in the first place a gesture expressing loyalty, and it became firmly rooted in our societies during the time of the Ottomans; many customs took shape in their time, and we remain influenced by their thought to this day.
Incorrect justifications
The religious justifications with which it is colored are incorrect and entirely contrary to theology, and I shall present two justifications:
1. That the priest carries in his hands the Body and Blood of the Lord. This talk is not a justification; if a priest carries the Body of the Lord he also uses his hands for other matters, and if he carries the holy things it is because he has preceded every one of us and has put on Christ in baptism, where he was baptized and anointed with chrism and became a vessel of the Holy Spirit. The priest’s carrying of the offering adds no holiness to him, and therefore this is a responsibility upon the priest and the bishop and a reminder to them that they should be worthy and ready and that their hands should be pure from every defilement and sin, and the one worthy of serving the offerings alone is the one who washes the feet of his flock. This saying is a reminder to the priest, the bishop, and the patriarch to work and to serve, and not for the people to kiss his hands.
The special priesthood is a part of the royal priesthood, and we have all put on Christ in baptism; the special priesthood is an activation of the royal priesthood[7]. The idea of the bodily sanctification of the clergyman was rejected and despised by the saints on the basis of the clerical rank, whose mere nature does not increase the state of holiness in man or raise it[8]. Saint Nicholas Cabasilas says “the priesthood of the priest today is powerless because he defiles it by his life; he is able to sanctify the offerings but is not able to be sanctified by them.” It neither adds to him rank nor stature, but rather adds to him the service of feet-washing as Christ did.
2. The second justification is that “his hand is the hand of God,” but this is theologically incorrect, for the pierced hand on the Cross alone is the hand of God. God forbid that any man’s hand should be the hand of God, however great a clergyman he may be. The priest (or bishop/patriarch) is not the representative of Christ or His agent; Christ is Christ in the mystery, and the assembly is His body[9]. The priest is the image of the Baptist[10] who shows the people and guides them to Christ. It is true that the priest’s hands are no longer his own but have become the property of Christ[11], but so that they may wash feet as Christ did; his hands have not become the hands of Christ or of God. Theologically, however, they are the hands of the assembly that delegated him to celebrate the mysteries on its behalf. The two hands are the symbol of work, and our hands, when anointed with chrism, became the property of Christ and of the whole assembly (priests of God, royal).
The source of the custom:
1. This custom came in its first clear form from the ecclesiastical tradition of carrying the cross, because the kiss originally belonged to the cross that the priest holds in his hand; the people would kiss the cross [12]. We still often see the bishop raise the icon (the englopion) that he carries so that the people may kiss it, and when he does not raise it the people kiss his hand. When the priests no longer carried the cross in their hands, the custom of kissing the hand remained.
2. Socially it is a custom widespread in all our eastern environments, carrying two meanings: the first is respect. In the East, Muslims and Christians share the same manners, and this custom came from ancient societies, especially from the patriarchal society (familial, not masculine), where the son kisses the hand of the father/mother or grandfather/grandmother, denoting respect and seeking satisfaction and meaning obedience to them; the father’s refusal to give his hand to his son means dissatisfaction. This is exactly the same in the Church, for seeking the blessing means seeking approval and permission, and when the bishop/priest answers “let it be blessed” it means consent. So when we say “go and take the blessing of the bishop or priest so-and-so,” it means going to take his approval, and withholding the blessing means disapproval.
Therefore kissing the priest’s hand is kissing his hand in itself, just as the monks’ kissing the hand of the abbot of their monastery is the same, considering the abbot the father of the monks; and it is recent too. We do not read in the ancient monastic literature of the existence of this custom. The custom of making a metania (bowing) before the bishop and the priest comes from monasticism and is connected with asking forgiveness, where the monk bows to his brother monk when he has wronged him. The giving of the blessing is done by making the sign of the cross with the hand or with the cross itself, and the one seeking the blessing kisses the cross, which should be carried, not the hand.
The second meaning is submission. We read in the book Al-‘Iqd al-Farid “a man entered upon Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik and kissed his hand, and he said: fie on him; the Arabs never kissed hands except in terror, nor did the non-Arabs do it except in submission”[13] . This is confirmed by Patriarch al-Duwayhi: “for kissing the hand of the superiors is a proof of submission and reverence toward those who exercise the priestly authority”[14]. And in the context of the relation to political authority, it is reported that some Turkish leaders who surrounded the Saadian Sultan Muhammad al-Sheikh “would enter upon him every morning to kiss his hand, according to the habit of the Turks in that”[15], and this is exactly what happens every day, for example, in the archdiocesan residence, where the employees kiss the metropolitan’s hand.
In Amazigh society in Morocco, for example, some kiss one another’s hands upon meeting[16](watch the attached video). For example, Ibn Muflih says: “kissing the hand they were not accustomed to except rarely; and among the emblems of some… kissing the hand by shaking hands, for no one of them shook the hand of his companion except that each of them kissed the hand of his companion”[17] . This is exactly what the priests do upon meeting, and at the kiss of peace in the Liturgy. And concerning the etiquette of giving the hand to be kissed, for example one of the Muslim scholars says “a man’s initiating by stretching out his hand to the people so that they may kiss it — this is forbidden without dispute, whoever he may be, in contrast to the case in which the one kissing initiates that, in which there is no harm; but as for his stretching out his hand to the people, this is among what is forbidden”[18]. This same is one of the etiquettes of the priest or bishop: he does not stretch out his hand to anyone except to him who comes to take the blessing, whose basis is the blessing from the cross, not from his hand.
The title Sayyidna
It is worth noting that the title (Sayyidna or Mawlana) for the bishop or the patriarch is a political title and among the relics of Ottoman rule. The honoring of the Ottoman sultan, the governors, and the princes was anciently done with these titles, because they possessed headship and sovereignty; hence the title “his sovereignty.” Thus it is said, for example, “Mawlana the governor,” and “Mawlana the Patriarch” is said because in the Ottoman period the patriarch became the head of a nation and assumed an important political authority, and all the clergy exercised this authority, each from his own position[19]. He was the head of the millet and was not merely a religious figure, for the Ottoman authorities granted (to the Patriarch of Constantinople and, through him, to the rest) temporal authority over the Christians in addition to his spiritual authority; he is the head of his millet and responsible for it and for collecting the taxes for the Ottoman state[20]. The bishops adopted the exercise of authority like the Ottoman governors, being leaders of their millets and their political and religious leaders, as some were in the time of the Byzantine Empire, where some bishops adopted in exercising authority a manner close to that of the Roman rulers; hence came the title “his sovereignty/Sayyidna.” Unfortunately the country was liberated from the Ottoman yoke, but we still to this day live and dwell under it, and our whole church structure and our institutional model were shaped in the time of the Ottoman state.
The sakkos vestment
The sakkos and the crown are essentially for the king. Asad Rustum says “since the true King is an unseen spirit, the tangible king became the symbol of the Lord King and His deputy on earth; his garment is the garment of icons, and his crown and scepter are surmounted by the cross”[21] . The paradox is that the Pope abandoned the royal crown while we preserve the imperial heritage, and our ecclesiastical system in the East and the entire structure are still what the Ottoman authority crystallized, and we continue to operate by the same laws and the same spirit.
As for the fundamental title of the metropolitan, it is “our father,” like the priest, and this is what we hear in the Great Litany of Peace in the Liturgy: “for our father and chief of our priests so-and-so.” The qunbaz garment is nothing but an old Damascene folk garment worn by the wealthy, the educated, and the notables of the town, which the clergy preserved while society moved on to wearing trousers. The sakkos and the crown are connected with the emperor and entered the Church from him; the Metropolitan of Aleppo wore the sakkos in the year 1581[22] , and the crown is the symbol of authority, having no relation to the crown of thorns on the head of Christ. And among the great lapses is that a clergyman should think that his office grants him rights over the assembly and that they are obliged to obey him; this is a matter in which there is error and orthopraxic deviation. For our love for Jesus Himself springs from “because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19) (as Saint Silouan confirms), and our love for Him did not come from His office (His authority) as Son of God alone; rather Jesus embodied acts and showed love and service first, which qualified us afterward to love Him and follow Him, and when we followed Him He washed man’s feet. We met Him with love on the basis of His works for us, not on the basis of His divinity over us — on the basis of His stature, not His office; on the basis of His service to us, not His authority. If the clergyman is not in the image of Christ, sacrificing, serving, and washing feet, then no one owes him any respect or reverence. The Apostle Paul says “let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine” (1 Tim. 5:17).
Consequently, those who do not rule well are not worthy, and the priest, the bishop, or the patriarch must not take the holy things as an excuse to raise his status and gain glorification and reverence. The clergyman must manifest in himself the image of Christ and perform works that make him worthy of respect and of being listened to — loving, serving, sacrificing, visiting, and listening. It is not enough that a person holds an office (priest, metropolitan, or patriarch) to receive respect; rather he must perform acts like Jesus that justify his respect, and he represents the assembly not by virtue of his office but according to how much he shows himself a stature after Jesus.
Conclusion
In the end, we must remember the saying of Jesus “do not call ‘my Lord, my Lord.’” The custom of kissing the hand must be abolished and annulled. The bishop, the priest, or the patriarch must receive respect and reverence not because of what he carries but because of what he does for his people. We must return to the custom of the kiss of peace, which did not merely mean a symbol of love but was a sacramental act, a visible sign, and a rite in every sense of the word (see Alexander Schmemann). For we are all royal priests of God, and all the members of the Church of God are members of one body and carry equal dignity (Saint Justin). Whoever among us chose the priestly service chose slavery to his people and to wash their feet, not lordship over them. The kissing of the hand must be confined to the Liturgy among the clergymen, for unfortunately traditions entered the Church that overthrew all the pious and authentic heritage.
The saying that the priest’s hands carry the mysteries is a reminder to each of us, we the company of priests, to sanctify ourselves and to work and be ready at all times, and it is not a justification for kissing the hands; and it is a reminder to the priest that his hands have become the property of God, to perform with them works of holiness and to wash with them the feet of his people. For we are all the people of God and all priests of God, and we have all put on Christ and become one in Him. The priest offers the sacrifice, yes, but the rest of the people also have their inward parts as a receptacle for the sacrifice, and their bodies put on Christ and are a dwelling of the Spirit.
[1] The Collection of Canon Law, or the Laws of the Universal Christian Church, compiled, translated, and arranged by Archimandrite Hanania Kassab, Al-Nour Publications, 1998, p. 210.
[2] Father Alexander Schmemann, The Eucharist: Sacrament of the Kingdom, translated into Arabic by Samer Abboud, Al-Nour Publications, p. 197.
[3] Schmemann, p. 203.
[4] Archimandrite Dr. Elias Taameh, Draw Me After You and We Shall Run, Theological Studies and Christian Views, Akkar Orthodox Diocese–Marmarita, p. 194.
[5]. Awni Barsoum, The Clergy (Book Two) “The Bishops” An Analytical Study of the Laws Governing the Bishops, the Priests, and All the Clergy, Department of Canon Law, p. 117.
[6]Naser al-Sahli, article “Kissing the Hand and the Symbolism of Submission,” Al-Araby Al-Jadeed website, dated 10 September 2016.
[7] Dialogue with Athenagoras, p. 75.
[8] The Clergy, p. 117.
[9] Schmemann, p. 38.
[10] Explanation of the Divine Liturgy, translated into Arabic by Deacon Silwan Moussa, Father Gregory the Solitary of the Holy Mountain, Monastery of Our Lady of Balamand, first edition 1999, p. 164.
[11] Schmemann, p. 38.
[12] The Clergy, p. 117.
[13] p. 8 – The book Al-‘Iqd al-Farid – The Types of Kisses – Al-Maktaba Al-Shamela https://shamela.ws/book/23789/367#p5
[14] Patriarch Estephan al-Duwayhi, Manarat al-Aqdas (A Theological, Spiritual, Liturgical Encyclopedia), Part One, Maronite History and Heritage Series, edited by Rashid al-Khoury al-Shartouni, Dar wa Maktabat Biblion, Lebanon, Byblos, 2008, p. 65.
[15] Dr. Muhammad Shuqayr, article “The Rituals of Kissing the Royal Hand… The Justifications for Keeping It and the Necessities of Abolishing It,” Hespress website, Saturday 29 July 2017 – 05:00, link https://2u.pw/z3J3TXMQ
[16] https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1418420161953334
[17] p. 22 – The book Silsilat al-Adab al-Munjid – Kissing the Hand and Its Details – Al-Maktaba Al-Shamela https://shamela.ws/book/35111/498#p22
[18] p. 22 – The book Silsilat al-Adab al-Munjid – Kissing the Hand and Its Details – Al-Maktaba Al-Shamela https://shamela.ws/book/35111/498#p19
[19] The Sociology of Christianity, p. 7.
[20] Asad Rustum, The History of Antioch, Part Three, p. 8.
[21] Asad Rustum, The History of Antioch, Part Three, p. 188.
[22] Asad Rustum, The History of Antioch, Part Three, p. 25.
23. The Divine Economy in the Building Up of the Church, prepared by one of the monks of the Desert of Saint Macarius, Terminology and Church Knowledge (3), Toward a Permanent Constitution for the Coptic Orthodox Church, Dar Nubar Press, first edition, 2001.