1) In the first case, titlas or titles – tituli – were called: a) Warriors (milites) as defenders – tutuli, since they defend the fatherland – tueantur (they say, among other things, that this is where the nickname of Titus comes from).

?) Titla means the same as a monument, because it protects, as it were, a tueatur and preserves the memory of something; therefore, the tombs are called tituli. Josephus, mentioned in 1 Sam. 23:17 the monument calls it a tomb. "What is this titulus that I see?" asked King Josiah. "This is the tomb of the man of God," answered the citizens of that city. Thus, statues, columns, pyramids erected in memory of something are also called tituli.

Further, – ?), according to the remark of Baronius, under the year 112 after the birth of Christ, the titles or titles were called plats, signifying royal power, with the image of the emperors or with the inscription of their names (corresponding to the current flags or coats of arms). St. Ambrose, writing to Marcellina, calls such cloths (cortinas) royal, and the royal fiscal usually assimilated and dedicated a certain thing to the king by superimposing these coats of arms.

These titles or coats of arms were the property not only of the rulers, but also of private people, even the property of every rank and condition; In this case, the titla was 5) a simple sign that assimilated something to someone and thus served as a seal of property. This is evident from the explanation of Bl. Augustine on the Twenty-First Psalm.

From civil society this word passed to the church: a certain place or a certain house with a cross erected on it, as if with the imposition of some coat of arms, was assigned to sacred use; thus, the Greek emperor Theodosius, in his last book on the pagans,39 prescribed that pagan temples, after placing on them the sign of the venerable cross, should be appropriated to Christians. Hence it came about that this very place, or church, began to be called by the title – titulus – titla.40 In the course of time, only the main churches began to be called titles. Thus, titla ) meant the same as the church.

Finally?) the last meaning of the word "tita" is a name, the name of something; for example, Suetonius in the Life of Domitian says: "He restored (restituit) the numerous and most extensive creations destroyed by fire, but only under his own name (title), without any mention of the former creator".41 In the same sense, the word "titla" is used in the Chetya Minea of Makariev, in the life of St. St. Maximus the Confessor: "For Prepren was Pyrrhus (Patriarch of Constantinople). He came to the faithful and was received from the Church kindly and honestly, together with the title of the Patriarch" (January 25).

These are all the meanings of the word "titla" in those cases where there is no question of the cross.

2) Now let's see what "tita" means when it comes to any execution. Let us quote here the expression of a) external writers and b) the Holy Fathers themselves. Evangelists. Suetonius says of Caligula that in Rome, at a public feast, he suddenly gave a servant to the executioner because he had torn a silver tablet from the bed.42

Now let us listen to what the holy Evangelists say about the title. Let us take down here the passages of all four Evangelists in which they speak of this title—and they all express themselves in different words on this subject—and then show what the title on the cross is in the sense of the Romans, since it was customary only among them. St. The Evangelist Matthew significantly says: "And he put wine on the top of His head [Jesus Christ] [??????] It is written: This is Jesus, the King of the Jews."43 St. The Evangelist Mark narrates: "And the writing of His guilt is written: King of the Jews".44 St. Luke says: "And it is written over Him by the Greeks, Romans, and Jews: This is the King of the Jews."45 St. The Evangelist John says: "And Pilate wrote the title, and put it on the cross: it is written, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. This title is many from the Jews, for near the place of the city where Jesus was crucified: and it is written in Hebrew, Greek, and Roman."46 Thus, the Evangelist Matthew calls the titla the guilt written; St. Mark – by the writing of guilt, St. Luke – by the written writing, and St. John the Evangelist used here the very Roman word – the title: "Put down the title Pilate." Since the inscription indicated the imaginary guilt of the Lord, for which He was crucified, the Evangelist Matthew calls the titla the written guilt, and the Evangelist Mark combined together both words, the inscription and the guilt, and said: "And the writing of His guilt is written"; the Evangelist Luke, paying attention to one inscription, to one word, says simply that an inscription was written on the cross. But St. John speaks most of all about the title, calling the inscription on the cross the Latin word itself47 ??????, since by this word he understood exactly what the Romans meant by it at that time, i.e. the inscription itself and the substance on which it was written, and the very guilt of death. From this we deduce the meaning of the word titla, namely: titla is the same as 1) guilt, the reason for which one is subjected to the crucifixion, 2) the crime for which he is executed, and 3) the very substance on which the guilt was inscribed; in short, in a word, in Roman, all this is called together by the titla – titulus, as the Holy Evangelist John called it. Although he wrote his Gospel, according to the testimony of the Fathers and Teachers of the Church, in Greek, he used the Roman word here, among other things, because many Roman words, in the time of Christ the Savior and after, passed into the Greek language and became Greek; Among them are the words: ?????? –  titulus, ????????? – fragcllum, ?????????? (John 6), ?????? (Luke 8), ?????????? (Acts 6), ?????????, ?????????, ???????, ??????????? etc.

What was the substance on which the title was written? Sozomen, describing the finding of the Precious Cross by St. Helena, says that in the cave in which the three crosses were found, a white tablet was also found separately, resembling a tablet, on which were inscribed not only Hebrew, but also Greek and Roman letters, which words and letters expressed nothing else than the following: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.48 Thus, the imaginary guilt of Christ's death was written on a tablet, which was whitewashed with white paint for greater clarity and convenience in reading (????????); the words themselves were red, as is seen in the remains of the titla preserved at Rome,49 and were carved on wood with an iron tool (stylo ferreo) in the reverse order of the letters, as in the Hebrew language, since even at that time there was still in great use the method of writing, invented much earlier by carving on wood, metal, or stone, and the Greek verb ???????, ?????????, which expresses precisely this most ancient method of writing, has first of all precisely this meaning, i.e., to carve with an iron tool, as Joachim Perionius remarks in the second book on the affinity of the French language with the Greek, because the French verb engraver (sculpere, insculpcre), derived from the Greek ?????????,, means to carve, to cut on something.50 According to Roman custom, a tablet with an inscription of guilt was sometimes carried in front of the criminal to the place of execution, or he himself carried it around his neck, or. Finally, she was nailed to the cross. But it was not always an inseparable part of the cross. Sometimes, instead of writing the name of the criminal and the crime on a tablet, hanging it around his neck or carrying it before the criminal and then nailing it on the cross, they acted more simply: one of the soldiers in the ears of all the people had to shout: so-and-so is crucified for such and such a crime, and then the guilty person was crucified without nailing titles over him. For example, the crosses of the thieves crucified with Jesus Christ did not have a title.51

From all that has been said about the titla, it is evident that it did not at all constitute an essential attribute of the cross and, consequently, was not part of the cross; she may or may not have been on the cross; they could write, and sometimes did, and nailed to the cross, but they could not write, but simply proclaim that a known criminal was crucified for toto; In both cases, i.e., whether or not there was an inscription on the cross, it was still a cross, just as, for example, a man's house, whether it had an inscription with the name of the landlord on it or not, would still remain a house.

In order for even more so-called Old Believers to be convinced that even without the title the cross is the same immutable cross of Christ, it is enough to put into view the words of the Holy Evangelist John about the title laid down by Pilate. What are these words? We have already given them above, but here for this purpose we will cite them again. St. John says: "Pilate also wrote the title, and put it on the cross" (chapter 19). On what did Pilate put the title? – On the cross, on the very cross on which our Savior was already hanging. This means that even before the title the cross was already the Cross of Christ – and even when it was still carried first by the Savior Himself, and then by Simon of Cyrene to Golgotha.

Paying attention to the titla as it is made on our crosses, we cannot but say that it is difficult to recognize in it the titla that was placed on the Cross of the Lord: pious custom attached it to the tree of the cross in such a way that it seems to constitute the most essential integral part of it, together with the diameter that contained the nailed hands of the Divine Sufferer: Our titla is cut into the cross, and is not placed or nailed to it slightly, in accordance with its purpose: or if it is made of metal, then in this case we see not some kind of plank, but a real transverse yard.

The Church allows such crosses to be composed, of course, because it does not harm faith and piety in the least, and no sane person, of course, would stand for this or that type of cross. For Christians, there is always only one cross – Christ's – whether it has a title or without a title, with or without a footstool. But if the schismatics so advocate this title, then justice demands that it be said that the upper cross-sections of the cross should not be fixed on it in the same way as it is affirmed in our country, if they absolutely want the cross to have a title, but in such a way that it would be seen that it is nothing more and nothing less than an inscription of the cross, which in any case does not form a part of the cross, and should not be taken into account when counting its ends. as something accidental, surplus. Moreover, if the so-called Old Believers absolutely want to see the titla on the cross and do not want to worship the cross without it, then then they allow themselves not to depict on the cross or not to hammer into it the nails that pierced the Life-Giving Hands of the Saviour, and not to count their ends together with the ends of the titla and pedestal, while the huge Roman nails used in this case, were really protruding over nailed hands and feet, as the most ancient monuments of the Crucifixion show?52