Editing Genuflection (section)

{{Short description|Bending a knee towards the ground}}
{{For|the anti-racist gesture|Taking the knee}}
[[File:St Maria Sehnde Gottesdienst.jpg|thumb|Genuflection on one knee, during a Catholic Mass]]

'''Genuflection''' or '''genuflexion''' is the act of bending a knee to the ground, as distinguished from [[kneeling]] which more strictly involves both knees. From early times, it has been a gesture of deep respect for a superior. Today, the gesture is common in the Christian religious practices of the [[Anglicanism]],<ref name=Allen/> [[Lutheranism]],<ref name=Armstrong/> the [[Catholic Church]],<ref name=Ingram/> and [[Western Rite Orthodoxy]].<ref name=SMPC/> The [[Latin]] word {{lang|la|genuflectio}}, from which the English word is derived, originally meant kneeling with both knees rather than the rapid dropping to one knee and immediately rising that became customary in Western Europe in the [[Middle Ages]]. It is often referred to as "going down on one knee" or "bowing the knee".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://saintpaul.episcopaloklahoma.org/About%20US/the-sign-of-the-cross-bowing-and-genuflecting-what|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180218210613/http://saintpaul.episcopaloklahoma.org/About%20US/the-sign-of-the-cross-bowing-and-genuflecting-what|archive-date=18 February 2018|url-status=dead|title=The Sign of the Cross, bowing and genuflecting, what is it?|publisher=Saint Paul's Episcopal Church|location=Oklahoma, US|access-date=10 August 2018}}</ref> In [[Western culture]]:
* one genuflects on the left knee to a human dignitary, whether ecclesiastical or civil;
* in Christian churches and chapels, one genuflects on the right knee when the [[Eucharist|Sacrament]] is not exposed but in a [[church tabernacle|tabernacle]] or veiled.

Conversely, one kneels with both knees if the Sacrament is exposed.