The history of the Christian religion has crossed the line of two millennia. During this time, the symbolism of the church became unobvious without additional knowledge for its parishioners. People often wonder what the crescent moon symbolizes on the Orthodox cross. Since it is difficult to achieve absolute specificity in religious symbolism, we will try to consider all versions in order to get the right opinion on this issue.
Cross in other cultures
The cross as a special symbol existed in different cultures even before the advent of Christianity. For example, among the pagans this sign symbolized the sun. In the modern Christian interpretation, echoes of this significance remain. For Christians, the cross is the sun of truth, which complements the personification of salvation after Jesus Christ was crucified.
In this context, the meaning of the crescent on the Orthodox cross can be understood as the victory of the sun over the moon. This is an allegory of the victory of light over darkness or of day over night.
Crescent moon or boat: versions of the origin of the mark
There are several versions of what exactly symbolizes the crescent on the Orthodox cross. Among them, we distinguish the following:
- This sign is not a crescent at all. There is another ancient symbol that visually resembles it. The cross as a symbol of Christianity was not immediately approved. Constantine the Great established Christianity as the main religion of Byzantium, and this required a new recognizable symbol. And the first three centuries the graves of Christians were decorated with other signs - a fish (in Greek "ichthys" - the monogram "Jesus Christ of God the Son of the Savior"), an olive branch or an anchor.
- An anchor in the Christian religion is also of particular importance. By this sign is understood the hope and the firmness of faith.
- The Bethlehem manger also resembles a crescent. It was in them that Christ was found a baby. In this case, the cross rests on the birth of Christ and grows out of its cradle.
- The Eucharistic chalice in which the Body of Christ is located may be implied by this sign.
- This is also a symbol of the ship led by Christ the Savior. The cross in this sense is a sail. The church under this sail is sailing for salvation in the kingdom of God.
All these versions are to some extent true. Each generation put its own meaning into this sign, so important for believing Christians.
What does the crescent on the Orthodox cross mean?
The crescent is a complex and ambiguous symbol. The centuries-old history of Christianity left many prints and legends on it. So what does the crescent on the Orthodox cross mean in the modern sense? The traditional interpretation is that it is not a crescent, but an anchor - a sign of firm faith.
Evidence of this statement can be found in the Bible Hebrews (Hebrews 6:19). Here Christian hope is called a safe and strong anchor in this raging world.
But during the time of Byzantium, the crescent, the so-called tsata, became a symbol of royal power. Since then, temple domes have been decorated with crosses with a zest at the base to remind people that the King of Kings owns this house. Sometimes this sign also adorned the icons of saints - the Most Holy Theotokos, Trinity, Nicholas and others.
False interpretations
In search of an answer to the question of why the crescent moon is at the bottom of the Orthodox cross, people often associate this sign with Islam. Allegedly, the Christian religion thus demonstrates its rise above the Muslim world, trampling the crescent cross. This is fundamentally the wrong belief. The crescent began to symbolize Islamic religion only in the 15th century, and the first recorded image of a Christian cross with a crescent refers to the monuments of the 6th century. This sign was found on the wall of the famous Sinai monastery named after St. Catherine. Pride, the oppression of another faith, contradicts the basic principles of Christianity.
Crescent moon and star
The fact that Muslims borrowed a crescent sign from Byzantium, they themselves do not argue. The crescent and star are several thousand years older than Islam. Many sources agree that these are ancient astronomical symbols that the Central Asian and Siberian tribes used to worship the sun, moon and pagan gods. Early Islam also did not have a basic symbol, they were adopted a little later, like the Christians. The crescent on the Orthodox cross appeared no earlier than the 4th-5th centuries, and this innovation had a political connotation.
The crescent and star began to be associated with the Muslim world only from the time of the Ottoman Empire. According to legend, Osman - its founder, had a dream in which a crescent moon rose above the ground from edge to edge. Then in 1453, after the Turks conquered Constantinople, Osman made the crescent and star the emblem of his dynasty.
Differences of crosses in Christian denominations
There are a great many variations of crosses in Christianity. This is not surprising, since this is one of the largest denominations - about 2.5 billion people around the world consider themselves to be this. We have already figured out what the crescent on the cross of the Orthodox church means, but this is not its only form.
It is generally accepted that in Protestantism and Catholicism the cross always has 4 ends. And Orthodox or Orthodox crosses have more of them. This is not always an accurate statement, since even the Cross of the papal ministry looks different than the 4-point one.
At our monasteries and churches, the cross of St. Lazarus is erected, and it is 8-pointed. Also emphasizes the firm faith of the crescent on the Orthodox cross. What does the oblique horizontal bar mean? There is a separate biblical tradition on this subject. As we can see, Christian symbols cannot always be taken literally, for this it is worth more deeply understanding the history of world religion.