Orans

Some scholars also assert that the deference this pose exhibits—with the outstretched hands showing a sort of submission to a religious power—is intertwined with Roman ideas of pietas; this encapsulates notions of family values, civic honor and charitable behavior.

[8][9] In Oriental Orthodoxy, Coptic Christian believers pray the seven canonical hours of the Agpeya at fixed prayer times in the orans position while standing.

[3] In the Catholic Church, Masses in the Latin liturgical rites see the celebrating priest prays the orations, the canon, and the Lord's Prayer in the gesture of orant; in the Maronite Church's Holy Qurbana, the congregation together with the priest lift up their hands in the orans posture during various parts of the liturgy, such as the anaphora and Lord's Prayer.

Another inscription says, 'Statue, say unto my king (god)..."[14] The custom of praying in antiquity with outstretched, raised arms was common to both Jews and Gentiles, and indeed the iconographic type of the Orans was itself strongly influenced by classic representations.

Other theories imply a less metaphorical view, instead arguing that the heavily feminine iconography of orans sheds light on the state of female involvement in the early Church.

One of the most remarkable figures of the orans cycle, dating from the early fourth century, is interpreted by Wilpert as the Blessed Virgin interceding for the friends of the deceased.

[15] The Platytéra, a hagiographic depiction on the Virgin Mary as Our Lady of the Sign which is standing in the orans gesture, usually placed on the half-dome above the altar of Byzantine-style churches, and facing down the nave.