Welcome to answers from an apostolic faith.
In the name the Father and Son, the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.
So, today's question is very interesting. Why do we kiss the hands of the priests? Most people answer and say: Because the priest touches the body of Christ and the blood of Christ. Therefore, we wanna partake of that blessing. However, if I think about it more logically, your own lips have touched the body and the blood of Christ. So, why would these blessed lips take on the blessing of the priest's hands?
To be able to truly understand the answers to that question, I have to ask myself a different question: What is the priesthood? Who is the priest? Most people will answer and say the priest is a representative of Christ or the priest is a symbol of Christ. However, both of these are incorrect. So, what is the priesthood?
Let us look into the Bible. So, we all know, in Acts 2, verses 1 to 4, this is when the disciples became Christians. In other words, the Holy Spirit came down in the day of Pentecost and they became Christians. So, they spoke in tongues and all the details we know of. However, if we dig a bit deeper, we go back to John 20. In John 20, this is the same day of the resurrection, in the evening, so 50 days before the Pentecost. And Christ appears to them and does something very weird. Look what it says:
'' 22 And when he had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, ''Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.'' '' (John 20:22-23)
Wait a second! Christians only receive the Holy Spirit once. How come they received it twice? We have to understand this is when Christ appeared to them and He gave them the priesthood. He ordained the apostles bishops at that time. That's why this Holy Spirit with this different quality of the Holy Spirit is linked with the forgiveness and retaining of sins. So, there's something very sacramental, very mysterious in this priesthood, and we have to understand that.
Now, let us dig even deeper. If we look at the Passover meal, the Last Supper, we have Christ that is sitting at the table with His disciples around him. And we know about the Holy Trinity, obviously: the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen. So, the second hypostatis, the second person in the Trinity, the Son of God, is sitting in the flesh on this table and what He does is He breaks His own body. So, we have the Son of God breaking the Son of God.
This is exactly what happens every single liturgy that we pray. We have the Son of God in the priest... is breaking the Son of God in the bread; the Son of God breaking the Son of God. So, the priesthood is not a representation of Christ. Rather, it is the presence of Christ. So, we understand that when we hear some phrases from our families in Upper Egypt when they say: Christ has visited us today. They say this when a priest comes in their home, because they have understood that sacramentally, mystically, the actual presence of Christ was there in the house.
That is why also that all sacraments are performed by priests. Communion, confession, baptism, they're all done by priests. You cannot have a layman that comes and performs the sacraments. This is not gonna happen. It's not gonna happen, because he does not have the actual presence of Christ in him, in this mystical priesthood that God has given to certain people to serve Him.
Finally, let us look at the Church Fathers. There are many quotes from the Church Fathers about the priesthood, but I'll only use one for the sake of time. I'll look at St. Ignatius of Antioch. St. Ignatius is born in 35 A.D. and departed in 110 A.D. Therefore, he lived in the 1 st century. Actually, it is said about him that he's the direct disciple of St. Peter the Apostle. St. Ignatius says, in his Letter to the Trallians, chapter 3, the following:
''Let all reverence the deacons as an appointment of Jesus Christ [here, he's talkin' 'bout the full rank of deacons, which is the first rank of the priesthood], and the bishop as Jesus Christ [the bishop is the actual presence of Jesus Christ], who is the Son of the Father, and the presbyters [or the priests] as the sanhedrin of God, and assembly of the apostles. Apart from these, there is no Church.'' (St. Ignatius, Epistle to the Trallians, chapter 3, Honour the Deacons)
So, things are clear from the Bible, from the Church Fathers, from our apostolic tradition. So, going back to our original question: Why do we kiss the hand of the priest? We kiss the hand of the priest, because mystically, we are kissing the hand of Christ Himself that is in that priest, in the sacrament of the priesthood.
But, the priest removes his hand. He actually should be leaving it there, because it's a blessing for the people, but he removes his hand out of humility and imitating our fathers, the monks. So, this is why we kiss the hands of the priest.
Remember: Know your faith, live your faith, and teach your faith. And glory be to God forever. Amen.