“The Cross is a great safeguard, given freely to the poor and without labour to the weak!”

People of other confessions sometimes ask why we regard the cross as a Christian symbol. They declare that Christians have no “monopoly” on the cross, since the cross is a mystical symbol for most peoples; and besides, in their view, Christians adopted the cross as a symbol only in the 4th century, and that by order of the Byzantine emperor Constantine the Great. We want to answer our opponents.

Long before Christianity, various forms of the cross are found in the cultures of many peoples of Asia and Africa. Among different peoples this symbol carried its own weight and meaning. As a rule, the symbolism of the cross was connected with the world, the cosmos, the opposition of heaven and earth or of time and space. The depiction of the cross is also connected with the symbolic meaning of numbers (for example, X and the numbers derived from it).

In Christianity the cross acquires a fundamentally new and unusual meaning, which had never appeared before anywhere, in any cultural heritage. The cross becomes the symbol of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and the testimony of the redemption of mankind! The most shameful instrument of execution — crucifixion — became the symbol of salvation! Citizens of the Roman Empire were not subjected to this shameful punishment. Yet what was shameful for the Romans was turned completely around for Christians, and appeared as the best-known and most venerated religious symbol in the world!

The symbol of the cross became established throughout the Roman Empire at the end of the 4th century. Traditionally this is connected with the name of the emperor Constantine the Great, who in 312 had a vision: a cross appeared in the sky with the inscription “By this conquer!” The emperor marched against the enemy with his army under the cross and defeated the enemy. From then on the cross became a symbol of victory.

Before the age of Constantine, Christians refrained from depicting the cross of Christ openly, and still more the crucifixion. But this does not at all mean that the symbol of the cross did not exist in Christian life before then.

According to many testimonies, the cross, as the instrument of the world's redemption by Jesus Christ, was an object of the greatest veneration among Christians from the day the Church was founded! The fathers of the Church speak of this veneration as an apostolic tradition, that is, a tradition begun by the apostles themselves, the first disciples of Christ. During the first three centuries this knowledge belonged to the disciplina arcani (“the secret teaching,” or “the secret of the teaching”), which was established in the Christian faith and its customs and was kept secret from the pagans.

It seems that something about the tradition of the cross was known to the pagans all the same, for many Christians venerated the cross openly and courageously. According to Pontius, the biographer of St Cyprian of Carthage, in the 3rd century some Christians marked the cross on their foreheads; during persecutions of Christians it was by this sign that they were recognised and handed over for torture. A 3rd-century vessel found by archaeologists has been preserved on which a human face is depicted with a cross on the forehead.

From the decrees of the Seventh Ecumenical Council it is known that in the 3rd century, in the reign of Diocletian, the holy martyrs Procopius and Orestes had a cross marked on their breasts.

Besides this, it is known that the pagans mockingly called Christians crucicolae (cross-worshippers). They thought that Christians worshipped the cross as a fetish or an idol.

On household objects found in excavations in Rome and Pompeii, only allegorical depictions of the cross or crucifixion occur. There are also many symbols of the cross in various forms, for example the anchor, or the first letter of Christ's name — X — which was also called the crux decussata (because it depicts the Roman numeral ten).

The ancient custom of venerating the cross is confirmed in the 2nd and 3rd centuries by Tertullian, Origen and others.

The Christian's life must be conformed to the cross! In the words of the holy apostle Paul: “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Epistle to the Galatians, ch. 6, 14). This quotation and other sayings of the apostles testify that from the very beginning of the Christian Church the cross and the sign of the cross were not only used as one of its symbols, but were the central notion of the Christian faith.

Below are sayings of the holy fathers about the cross, which confirm that from the beginning of the Christian Church the cross has been her inseparable central symbol.

Tertullian, instructing a Christian woman not to marry a pagan, among other considerations puts this question to her: “Will you be able to sign yourself with the cross in secret, or to sign your bed with the cross?” Tertullian (2nd century)

“If you, Jew, reproach us for venerating the wood of the cross as the Lord, why do you not accuse Jacob, who worshipped the top of his staff: ‘By faith Jacob… worshipped the top of his staff’ (Heb. 11:21)? It is perfectly clear that he worshipped not the wood, but Joseph through it, just as we, by venerating the cross, glorify Christ and not the wood.” Leontius, bishop of Neapolis (3rd century)

“Let us not be ashamed to confess the Crucified; let us boldly make the sign of the cross; let us mark the cross on the bread we eat, on the cups we drink from; let us mark the cross on the doorways. Let us sign ourselves with the cross when we lie down to sleep and when we wake, when we travel and when we rest. The Cross is a great safeguard, given freely to the poor and without labour to the weak.” St Cyril of Jerusalem (4th century)

“If you feel that your heart is growing irritated and heavy, sign yourself with the cross and so guard your breast.” St John Chrysostom (4th century)

“Get thee hence, Satan, or I shall strike thee with the cross, before which all things tremble. I bear the cross in my body; I make the cross as I walk; the cross is in my heart, and the cross is my glory!” St Gregory the Theologian (4th century)