Hopko’s sixth maxim:
Make some prostrations when you pray.
This reminds us of a fundamental truth of Orthodox anthropology: human beings are psychosomatic unities; body and soul are inseparable. This means that prayer should involve the whole person, not merely the intellect or emotions. Prostrations (metanoias in Greek, literally ‘repentances’) reflect this holistic approach by engaging muscles, joints, breath, and physical movement in prayer.
The physical act itself carries theological meaning. When we kneel and touch our foreheads to the ground, we create a living icon of humanity’s fall into sin – the descent towards earth from which we were formed. Standing up again symbolizes repentance and resurrection, the promise to pursue virtue through God’s grace. According to Theoleptos of Philadelphia, ‘Getting up signifies repentance and the promise to lead a life of virtue. Let each prostration be accompanied by a noetic invocation of Christ, so that by falling before the Lord in soul and body you may gain the grace of the God of souls and bodies.’ The Prayer of St Ephrem the Syrian, recited with prostrations throughout Great Lent, structures this rhythm of descent and ascent, humility and hope.
For high-functioning autistic Orthodox Christians, prostrations offer distinctive benefits that align with neurological differences in sensory processing, particularly in the proprioceptive and interoceptive systems. Proprioception – the sensory awareness of your body’s position and movement in space – is often processed differently in autism. Many autistic individuals seek proprioceptive input through deep pressure activities because this sensory feedback calms the nervous system, reduces anxiety, improves focus, and enhances body awareness. Prostrations naturally provide this deep pressure input. As your hands contact the floor, your knees follow, and your forehead touches down, receptors in muscles, joints, and tendons send steady, organizing signals to your brain about where your body is and what it’s doing.
The repetitive, rhythmic nature of prostrations also matters. Many autistic people find comfort and regulation through repetitive movements (‘stimming’) because predictable patterns of motion provide sensory stimulation, reduce stress, and foster emotional calm. Unlike random or unstructured movement, prostrations offer a liturgically sanctioned, spiritually meaningful form of repetitive motion. Each cycle follows the same sequence: sign of the cross, hands down, knees down, forehead touches, spring back up. This predictability creates both physical grounding and psychological safety, reducing the cognitive load of deciding what to do next while allowing the body to settle into a calming rhythm.
Additionally, prostrations can support interoceptive awareness – the ability to recognize internal bodily sensations like heartbeat, breathing, muscle tension, or emotional states (an ability with which many autistic people have difficulty). Prostrations naturally direct attention inwards: you notice your breathing change with exertion, feel your heartbeat, sense muscle engagement, and experience the physical vulnerability of bowing low. Over time, this mindful embodiment can strengthen the connection between bodily signals and conscious awareness, supporting broader self-regulation throughout daily life.
However, the Orthodox tradition recognizes that spiritual practices must be adapted to individual capacity (the principle of economia, or pastoral discretion). As Hopko’s second maxim wisely counsels, ‘Pray as you can, not as you think you must.’ This flexibility is essential for autistic Christians, whose motor planning, sensory sensitivities, physical stamina, or coordination may require such adaptation. For example, some autistic people find prostrations overwhelming because of their proprioceptive challenges. Many other (older and less able) Christians find them physically impossible. In such cases, an appropriate alternative would be to bow from the waist (also called metanoia): after making the sign of the cross, keep your knees straight while bending from the waist and extending your right hand toward the ground as far as comfortable. This still engages the body in prayer, honours the tradition, and provides some proprioceptive input, even if less intense. The goal is not athletic performance but embodied humility – and the Church has always made space for those whose bodies cannot perform certain movements.
Establishing a consistent routine matters deeply, both spiritually and neurologically. Autistic individuals typically thrive with predictable patterns and clear structure. Incorporating prostrations into a regular prayer rule – perhaps morning and evening, or at set times throughout the day – creates the repetition necessary for both spiritual formation and sensory regulation benefits. This consistency also builds the practice into your embodied memory, making it less cognitively demanding over time and more available as a refuge during stress or overwhelm.
Finally, recognize that what might feel awkward or mechanical initially can, through patient practice, become a doorway to deeper prayer. The multisensory nature of Orthodox worship – engaging sight, smell, sound, touch, and movement – serves all worshippers but may particularly benefit autistic Christians, who often process information across multiple sensory channels simultaneously. As one autistic Orthodox Christian reflected, ‘Icons and the patterning of prayer to draw our bodies and spirits towards God are gifts that allow me to wander like an autistic child towards the love that is waiting for me, to learn while I am living in welcome, to feel loved and valued, and to learn to love Jesus even before I know Him fully.’ Prostrations are part of this incarnational logic: God meets us not despite our bodies, but through them, honouring the flesh he himself assumed and making even our neurological differences a place of encounter with divine grace.
