ON THE CROSS OF CHRIST

Introduction.

O fountain of wisdom and understanding! Enlighten my mind,

so that I can happily begin, continue

and to accomplish this work to the glory of Thy Cross!

"And bearing His cross, He went out to the place spoken of the forehead."

In. 19, 17

What is more familiar to Christians than the cross of Christ, which, meeting our entry into the world, accompanies us everywhere during our entire pilgrimage on earth – to our humble bed in the earthly womb, over which it is set for the last time as a witness to the faith and hope of the departed? What is more famous than this sacred, terrible for demons and salvific for Christians four-pointed form of the Life-Giving Cross, which we so often depict on ourselves and even more often see in the Holy Church on the top of churches, in various sacred actions, on holy icons, on sacred vessels and vestments? Who does not know and venerate the Holy Cross about the four ends from the elder to the youth? And this well-known form of the cross, this most ancient shrine of faith, the seal of all the sacraments, as something new, unknown to our ancestors, which appeared yesterday, was suspected by our imaginary Old Believers, humiliated, trampled on in broad daylight. Spewing blasphemy against that which from the very beginning of Christianity has served and continues to serve as a source of sanctification and salvation for all, venerating only the eight-pointed, or three-part cross. That is, a straight shaft and three cross-sections on it, arranged in a certain way, they call the so-called four-pointed cross, the seal of the Antichrist and the abomination of desolation, which is the true and most common form of the cross (for it is only in the course of time that the eight-pointed cross became customary), as if after the destruction of the two cross-sections – the title with the pedestal – the cross ceases to be a cross and the figure with four ends can in no way be called one.

We will devote this discussion to the study of the cross of Christ, and we will present an archaeological study of its form, in order to show the schismatics from the very antiquity and universality of the use of the four-pointed cross, that this form of it is the true form and that all other types of the cross are only modifications of this true form of the cross, and in essence constitute one and the same cross of Christ. By this of itself, the blasphemy of the schismatics against the four-pointed cross will be refuted as absurd and without any foundation. As for the grounds of the alleged Old Believers, cited in support of their beliefs in the eight-pointed cross, we proposed to briefly analyze and refute them at the very end of the argument.