ORANS

The figure of a person with arms extended and the palms of the hands open in a prayerful attitude prevalent in ancient pagan and early Christian art. This motif is found in bas-reliefs and sculpture in pagan cemeteries and on coins with the legend pietas, particularly of the Roman imperial period. It is seen in funerary monuments such as the late Egyptian stele representing the deceased. In the primitive Christian catacombs the earliest orantes are purely representational figures; but in the 2d century, they depict individuals marked with names or richly clothed, with or without an imprecatory legend, e.g., Zoë in pace; In Deo vivas. The 3d-century orantes are accompanied by petitions for the beholder, e.g., In pace et pete pro nobis. That they were considered related to the future life is seen in depictions with the Good Shepherd or with animals and plants being vivified by the Water of Life. In the 2d century OT figures such as Abraham, Noe, Isaac, and Susanna were likewise depicted as orantes and later, martyrs such as Mennas, Januarius, Thecla, Cecilia, and Agnes. In early Byzantine art Mary is pictured as an orans; this mode continued in the East, but the tradition disappeared in the West with the catacombs.

Considerable study has been devoted to deciphering the exact significance of the orans from G. B. de rossi's conjecture of the Ecclesia Militans to Styger's symbol of heavenly glory and wilpert's prayer for those still on earth. The gesture is still used by clergy in the celebration of the Mass and other liturgical celebrations. In many places, the custom of the faithful praying the Lord's Prayer at Mass in the ancient orans posture has been revived in the wake of Vatican II.

Bibliography: t. klauser, Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 2 (1959) 115–145; 3 (1960) 112–133. j. k. leonard and n. d. mitchell, The Postures of the Assembly during the Eucharistic Prayer (Chicago, 1994).

[j. beaudry/eds.]