1. I haven't seen that exact practice before, but usually when the priest or deacon censes the church, the people do move out of the way until he is finished, then return to where they were standing. Seems more to be practicality than anything else.
As for your other two questions, I am going to quote a brief portion of an article by Frederica Matthews-Green that might answer your questions. At some point I need to email Frederica and see if she will grant us permission to host her articles on this site as she had on other Orthodox sites. Here is the quote:
I was thinking that, as far as I've been able to observe, [protestant denomination mentioned in article] never kiss, at least not in church. Orthodox eagerness to do so probably looks obsessive--even like idolatry. For, I must admit, we kiss a lot. We kiss icons, crosses, and Gospel Books, kiss the edge of the priest's garment and kiss his hand, kiss the chalice, and kiss each other. (Only practical concerns, I'm sure, deter us from kissing the censer.)
It reminds me of being a little girl of three or four, barefoot in my white nightgown, going around at my parents' party to kiss all the guests goodnight. I could hear someone chortling, "She's a regular kissing bug!" There is exuberance and generosity in the way we Orthodox scatter kisses around, cherishing the things and people that bear God to us.
St. John Chrysostom makes the charming assertion that, because we receive the holy Eucharist through our lips, our lips are most blessed, and we honor them by giving kisses. I first encountered this form of devotion a few years back at the Walters Museum in Baltimore. A selection of ancient Greek icons was on display, well-mounted and covered with protective glass. On looking closer I could see that the glass sheets over the icons were covered with many overlapping marks of kisses and lipstick.
How can we honor wood and paint this way? My Mennonite friend Nancy scoffs: "If Jesus is right there with you in worship, why do you need icons to remind you?" My husband laughs, "Because we need icons to remind us!" We are like the lover in the old hit song, who complains that his girl went "leaving just your picture behind/and I've kissed it a thousand times." It's not the paper photo that he's in love with, but the person it represents. But because it does represent his love, he cherishes and honors the photo, wearing it out with kisses. The holy, invisible Lord surrounds us and we grasp for his elusive presence, kneeling down awestruck with our foreheads to the floor, tasting heaven on the Eucharistic spoon, laying kisses on His image and each other and most anything else we can get hold of.
An outsider might expect Eastern Orthodoxy to be stuffy, esoteric, and rigidly ritualistic. But once inside, it turns out to be a box full of Kissing Bugs. We feel such gratitude to God for saving us, such awe at His majesty, such joy in the fellowship of the Saints, that we respond from the heart. It is not superstition requiring us to relinquish formal, ritual kisses. We find ourselves in our true home in the Church, astonished and overjoyed to be welcomed at this glorious feast. Like a child in a nightgown, secure in her Father's house, we go scattering our kisses with simplicity and love.
The full article may be found
here and other like articles can be found on the
Frederica Matthews-Green Homepage. I hope this helps!
