Thread: The Russian Cross

Or rather, the Orthodox Catholic cross:



The question is why does it have that horizontal line abone the main "cross", and the tilted one on the bottom? I asked some Russians, and they have no clue!

The top horizontal bar represents the title that was nailed on the cross
"Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews"

The bottom horizontal bar is where Jesus' feet were nailed to the cross.

http://www.seiyaku.com/customs/crosses/index.html

I wouldn't go to the Russian Tea Room to eat sushi, and no sooner would I expect a Japanese to offer a fair discourse on Christian iconography.

The Cross of Christ had a titulus (an inscribed slab which was affixed to the upright post of the cross) and a suppedaneum (a support for the feet—some crosses had a sedes, a seat, instead of this). Classical knowledge did not disappear into some intellectual cosmic wormhole on Day One of the Postclassical era. The early Church Fathers lived in the Roman Empire and knew exactly what a cross for execution looked like. The form of Roman crosses at the time of Christ has been preserved in the Orthodox Cross, a fact which has recently been confirmed by archeological research.

The Holy Cross is the earliest symbol of Christianity and its use was universal. The dearth of extant specimens is attributed to the impermanence of the materials used (as carved images were forbidden) as well as to the destruction of early Christian art that took place during the Iconoclast heresy. Evidence of the great antiquity and preeminence of the Cross is the revelation of the Cross (not a fish) to the emperor Constantine in 312.

The fish is also an ancient symbol of Christianity but its use was much more limited: nearly all surviving examples are from Rome. Neither the cross nor the fish had many applications in pagan imagery, and their development by early Christians was essentially generated by the Christians' independent creativity.

The insinuation of the author of the material on seiyaku.com that the Orthodox Cross is not older than the eleventh century is, to say the least, absurd, as is his claim of the wholesale appropriation of pagan symbols by the early Christians. Neither justifies further comment. The author further proves his ignorance by consistently referring to the later Roman Empire as the "Byzantine Empire," though many Roman Catholic authors do likewise.