Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Orans" in English language version.
Standing facing the East is the most frequent prayer position. The person praying usually holds his or her hands outwards in the 'orans' position, which is a common Christian position of prayer, frequently portrayed in ancient Christian art, including in Coptic iconography. At other times, hands may be kept down to the sides or held together as a sign of standing in humility before God. Some people choose to hold a cross in their hands as they stand in the orans position; in this case, the sign of the cross traced over the body ends with kissing the cross.
This is sometimes referred to as the Orans posture. The posture is explicitly directed by the presently used Maronite Qorbono. The posture has in its origins an association with prayer. It can be found in the Old Testament. In Psalm 141 we pray: "Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice." The posture is referred to in the New Testament at 1 Timothy 2:8, in the instructions concerning prayer: "I desire, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument;" We see the posture in the early Church catacomb icons as depicted here. The icon perhaps gives us the best indication of why the posture is presently used in the Maronite Mass.
The piety shows itself in the informal signing of one's body with the sign of the cross, in what 1 Timothy 2:8 calls "lifting holy hands" in prayer (a gesture stretching from the orans pictures in the catacombs to modern Pentecostalism), in penitential or submissive kneeling, in reverential genuflections, in the ascetical practices suggested by the apostle Paul's athletic imagery (1 Cor. 9:24-27; 1 Tim. 6:6-16; 2 Tim. 4:7f).
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