The Trial of the Russian Church, 1666–1667 #

After deposing Nikon, the council appointed a new patriarch in his place—Joasaph, formerly the archimandrite of the Trinity–Sergius Lavra. The council then proceeded to address the controversies stirred up by Nikon’s corrections of the service books and the curses he, along with the Greek hierarchs (including Patriarch Macarius of Antioch, who sat in judgment at the council), had hurled against ancient Church traditions and customs.

All affairs of the council were directed by Paisius Ligarides. No one expected him to defend the Old Faith. Nor could such a defense be expected from the Eastern patriarchs, for the Nikonian reforms had been introduced by the Greeks and were modeled after the spirit of the new Greek books, rites, and customs. Moreover, by this time the influence of the men of Kiev had grown significantly in Moscow. Little Russia had been annexed by the Moscow state, and from it a flood of southwestern monks, teachers, politicians, and opportunists had poured into the capital. All of them were heavily tainted by Latinism and had gained substantial influence at the royal court. Western trends began to take root in government circles and in the Tsar’s own thinking. From the West came all manner of novelties: fashions, luxury, theater. Religious devotion and ecclesiastical life were pushed aside¹. At the same time, Paisius Ligarides was conducting serious negotiations with Rome about uniting the Russian Church with the Latin Church. He also tried to persuade the Eastern patriarchs to support this. As for the Russian bishops, they were wholly obedient to the Tsar. It was under such circumstances that the council concerning Nikon’s church reforms was held. Naturally, it condemned all opponents of the reforms, approved the new liturgical books with all their errors and illiteracies, confirmed the new rites and customs introduced by Nikon, and sealed them with monstrous curses and anathemas.

The council cursed Orthodox Christians for making the sign of the cross with two fingers. It declared the two-fingered sign not only heretical because of the faith it expressed, but even because of the natural distinction between the fingers themselves and their unequal physical appearance.

It cursed Orthodox Christians for calling the Holy Spirit “True” in the Creed, claiming that this single word constituted a corruption of the Creed and was therefore subject to the anathema of the Ecumenical Councils.

It cursed them for saying “alleluia” twice during services, and then “Glory to Thee, O God” the third time. This double “alleluia” was explicitly denounced in the council’s official book, The Staff, as heretical and abhorrent to God.

It cursed all who would not make the sign of the cross with three fingers. This triple-fingered gesture was proclaimed a great and immutable dogma for all time.

For clergy, particularly for their blessings, the council also introduced another new hand gesture, called the kheroslozhny or imenoslovny blessing, supposedly forming the name “Jesus Christ”: the index finger forming the letter “I,” the middle finger curved to form “s,” the thumb and ring finger crossed to form “X,” and the little finger forming another “s.” This gesture is narrowly national, for in other languages the Savior’s name (for example, in Hebrew—Yeshua, written in Hebrew letters, or in Chinese or Japanese with their own characters) cannot be formed by any arrangement of fingers. Nonetheless, the council declared that Christ Himself had commanded blessings to be made with Slavic letters and that He had used this same national hand gesture to bless His Jewish apostles (see the book The Staff), even though any educated person knows that in Christ’s time neither the Slavic language nor the Slavic peoples even existed.

The council also cursed all Orthodox Christians who served using the old, pre-Nikonian books.

In conclusion, the council declared:

“This our conciliar commandment and testament, concerning all the aforesaid rites, we deliver and order to be kept unchangingly by all and submitted to by the holy Eastern Church. But if anyone does not obey what we command, and does not submit to the holy Eastern Church and this sanctified council, or begins to contradict and oppose us:

Then we, with the authority given to us by the all-holy and life-giving Spirit, cast out such a one, if he be of the clergy, stripping him of every sacred function and delivering him to the curse. If he be of the laity, we excommunicate and estrange him from the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, delivering him to the curse and anathema as a heretic and rebel, cutting him off from the body and flock of the Orthodox Church of God, until he comes to his senses and returns to the truth through repentance. But if he never comes to his senses and remains obstinate until the end of his life: then let him even after death be cut off, and let his portion and soul be with Judas the betrayer, with the Jews who crucified Christ, with Arius and the rest of the accursed heretics. Let iron, stones, and wood be broken and corrupted, but let him not be dissolved or corrupted, but like a timbrel, endure for all ages. Amen”².

This “conciliar decree” was inscribed in the Dormition Cathedral in Moscow “for eternal establishment and perpetual remembrance.”

These extraordinary curses and anathemas outraged even Nikon, who had been accustomed to cursing Orthodox Christians freely. He declared that they had been pronounced against the entire Orthodox people and deemed them “senseless”³. In truth, they were not only senseless and mad, but lawless and impious, and openly heretical. The council of 1666–1667 hereticated and anathematized the entire Russian Church, along with all its saints, miracle-workers, and the multitude of God’s righteous ones, for from the time of Prince Vladimir’s baptism the Russian Church had taught everything that this council now anathematized and declared heretical. From its very beginning, the Russian Church had taught the two-fingered sign of the cross; from that time it had called the Holy Spirit “True” in the Creed, had proclaimed “alleluia” twice and “glory to Thee, O God” the third time, had conducted services from the old books, and so forth. The council also anathematized the ancient Eastern Church itself, for it had handed down to Russia all the rites, customs, and practices which the council now condemned with such furious denunciation⁴.

In order to force the pious Russian people to accept the new faith and new books, the council blessed the torment of those who disobeyed its decrees with the harshest punishments: they were to be imprisoned, exiled, beaten with cowhide whips, have their ears and noses cut off, their tongues removed, their hands chopped off, and so forth⁵.

All these acts and decrees of the council brought great turmoil to the Russian Church and gave rise to the Church schism.

Uncanonical and Heretical Council #

The composition of the 1666–1667 council was extremely motley and disorderly. Half of it consisted of foreigners who had ended up there by chance, having come to Russia merely to profit from her generous alms. What sort of rogues and adventurers weren’t there! Greeks, Georgians, Bulgarians, Athonites, Sinai monks, Amaseans, Chionites, Iconians, Chians, men from Trebizond, and Little Russians (Ukrainians). Almost none of them knew anything of Russian Orthodoxy, nor did they understand or share in the Russian spirit or national feelings. They knew nothing of Russia herself, her history, or her sufferings—and not even the Russian language. What was Russia to them? What cared they for the piety of the Russian people? All they sought was the wealth of this, in their minds, wild but hospitable land. They were ready to anathematize everything, to declare everything heretical—not only Russian books and fingers, not only the prosphoras and their seals bearing the eight-pointed Cross of Christ, but even Russian beards and Russian clothing. And because of their ignorance, their lack of knowledge of the Russian tongue, they truly did not understand what or whom they were cursing and anathematizing, nor for what cause. They cared only for rich food and generous handouts. Everything else meant nothing to them.

All the affairs of the council were directed by Paisius Ligarides, Metropolitan of Gaza—a cunning Jesuit, an open apostate from Eastern Orthodoxy, who had been cursed and deposed from all sacred ministry by the Eastern patriarchs themselves for his apostasy, a most dishonorable rogue, a deceiver, a thief, a scoundrel, a sneak without equal—and to top it off, a vile pederast and sodomite. It is difficult to find in history a more criminal and loathsome adventurer⁶. And this flagrant criminal, this exposed heretic, this self-styled bishop, was the inspirer of the council, its supreme leader, its head and eyes, its heart and soul.

The patriarchs who sat at the council—Paisius of Alexandria and Macarius of Antioch—were little better than their eastern associate and companion Ligarides. They too had arrived in Moscow with forged letters, and they too had been stripped of their sees and were canonically condemned hierarchs, deprived of the right to perform any hierarchical acts even in their own territories. They were impostors and adventurers. Nikon rightly and quite justly called them at the very council, in the presence of the tsar himself, impostors, vagabonds, and deceivers. Based solely on these leaders and overseers, the council was clearly unlawful, vagabond, and self-appointed.

All the conciliar acts, all protocols, and other documents were composed by Hieromonk Simeon of Polotsk, also a foreigner, a khokhol (derogatory for Ukrainian), a “Latin lover.” Archimandrite Joakim of Chudov Monastery, who later became Patriarch of Moscow and participated in the council, acknowledged Simeon to be a thoroughgoing heretic and even publicly condemned him in print as a dangerous and stubborn Latinizer. Moreover, Simeon was an immoral man: in his writings, he expounded and endorsed such lustful love as would be shameful even to mention in polite company.

And so these dishonorable, faithless, immoral scoundrels and manipulators assaulted the Old Orthodox Russian Church, anathematized its centuries-old piety, declared its customs, rules, rites, liturgical books, and sacred traditions received from apostolic times to be heretical. The Russian hierarchs were silent at this many-tongued council. Stunned by this new “Tatar” invasion upon Holy Rus’, terrified by Nikon’s lawless executions and murders, they slavishly and silently bowed their submissive and, moreover, ignorant and dull heads before these dreadful ravagers and their soul-destroying wickedness⁷.

Neither Christ, nor the Holy Spirit, nor the grace of God, nor any blessing from above was or could have been present at this monstrous assembly of all sorts of wheeler-dealers and rogues, these foreign vagabonds—these monstrous blasphemers, potential murderers, crafty frauds, shameless deceivers, and manifest heretics. Yet, nevertheless, this vile rabble proclaimed itself a “Holy Council” and blasphemously uttered its mad anathemas against Orthodox Christians “in the name of the great God,” sacrilegiously presenting their savage, senseless, and lawless decrees and decisions as the “good pleasure” of the Holy Trinity Itself. Most blasphemous of all, this insane delirium, this horrific nightmare, this deathly breath of the devil himself was ratified by the Russian state power under Tsar Alexei as the voice and will of the holy conciliar and apostolic Church. This dreadful company of unbelievers was for centuries thereafter passed off as the very Church of Christ, and the slightest disobedience to this essentially Christ-killing church was punished by death, torture, and torment. From this Babylonian-Muscovite confusion, from this death-bearing mingling of tongues, began the centuries-long devastation of Holy Rus’—worse even than the Tatar invasion. That one enslaved bodies; this one—the spirit. That one ravaged the land; this one—the faith, piety, and very soul of the Russian people, breathing death upon all the generations to come. From this new Babylon—Moscow—there arose across Russia “Babylonian furnaces,” in which pious Russian people were burned by the tens, hundreds, and even thousands at a time. The whole land was lit by the fires of pyres and log cabins, sanctified by the blood and suffering of new great martyrs, passion-bearers, confessors—true saints of God and sufferers for Christ.

Two-Finger or Three-Finger Sign #

Which form of making the sign of the cross is older, more correct, and more acceptable—the two-finger or the three-finger sign? This question has not lost its relevance even in our time. For nearly three hundred years, disputes over it have continued between the Old Ritualists and the New Ritualists. And although it is now unquestionably and scientifically proven that the two-finger sign is of the most ancient origin (dating from apostolic times), and that the three-finger sign is a recent rite with no foundation—and, moreover, dogmatically erroneous⁸—nonetheless, the Nikonian party refuses to abandon it and continues to cling to it as to the greatest of sacred things, as if it were an immutable dogma of the faith⁹.

Even now, the New Ritualist Church continues to assert, in its published Psalters, Horologia, and Books of Hours (in the prefaces), as well as in textbooks on the Law of God, that the two-finger sign is an Armenian and heretical practice, while the three-finger sign is an apostolic tradition. Even in such a liturgical book as the Akathist to Saint Dimitry, Metropolitan of Rostov, the “Orthodox” Church still proclaims before God Himself that the Old Orthodox rites—especially the two-finger sign—are of heretical content and origin, specifically from a never-existent heretic named Martin the Armenian¹⁰.

If in our “enlightened” age, nearly godless, among those “cultured” and “enlightened” people steeped in liberalism, the question of the sign of the cross still carries such enormous confessional significance, then we can only imagine how deeply it stirred and troubled the pious people of the seventeenth century, for whom every church custom held immutable meaning. At that time, the question of the two-finger or three-finger sign was dreadful and fateful—a question of life or death. If you adopted the three-finger sign, you became a full citizen and a “true” Orthodox Christian; but if you held fast to the two-finger sign, you were condemned to destruction: you would be cursed, endlessly persecuted, subjected to excruciating tortures, and burned in a log hut, or end your life under torture, on the scaffold, by quartering, or else spend your entire life in hiding in forests and impassable places, on the distant edges of the homeland or even beyond its borders.

Why then did the pious Russian pastors of that time, and their faithful flocks, renounce all earthly goods, submit to the most dreadful tortures and death, and yet never abandon the two-finger sign? They had very firm and truly unshakable reasons for doing so.

1. Christianity is the religion of the Cross and of the God-Man. “At the center of the Christian mystery stands the Cross on Golgotha, the crucifixion and death of the Son of God, the Savior of the world. In the Son, in the Divine Man, in the God-Man, is contained the entire human race, all of mankind, every human face. Humanity is a part of the God-Manhood; Christianity is essentially anthropological and anthropocentric—it lifts man to an unprecedented, heavenly height. The Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God, is revealed as the Human Face. In this, man is placed at the center of being, and in him is laid the meaning and purpose of the world’s creation.” This Christian worldview and confession is expressed in the two-finger sign.

Even Saint Cyril of Jerusalem (4th century), in his Catechetical Lectures, exhorts: “Let us not be ashamed to confess the Crucified. Let us boldly trace with our hand the sign of the Cross upon our forehead and upon all things”¹¹¹²—specifically, the Crucified. At the head of the Christian confession stands the Son of Man, who bore our sins upon the Cross.

So also says Saint Peter of Damascus (8th century—according to some, 12th): “Two fingers and one hand reveal our Lord Jesus Christ crucified, acknowledged in two natures and one Hypostasis” (Philokalia)¹³. In the two-finger sign, the index finger represents the human nature of Christ, while the taller middle finger beside it represents the divine nature of the Son of God. Moreover, as catechetical instruction demands, the taller finger should be slightly bent at its upper joint, symbolizing the belief that “the Lord bowed the heavens and came down to earth.” The remaining fingers—the thumb and the last two—are joined together to signify the Holy Trinity¹⁴.

Thus, we see that the two-finger formation uses all five fingers—to confess the Holy Trinity and the two natures in Christ—but in the actual making of the sign of the cross and in blessing, only two fingers touch the forehead, the chest, the right shoulder, and the left¹⁵. Theologically and dogmatically, the two-finger sign is a fully Orthodox confession. Most importantly, it clearly and definitively expresses—and one might even say demonstrates or manifests—the central essence of Christianity: the crucifixion and death on the Cross of the God-Man, and with Him the co-crucifixion of all mankind. “We preach Christ crucified,” proclaims the Apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 1:23). The two-finger sign proclaims the same. It is substantial and visual: the Gospel and apostolic preaching.

In the three-finger sign, however, there is neither this central Christian confession nor this apostolic preaching. The Council of 1667 dogmatized: “Let the sign of the most honorable and life-giving Cross be made upon oneself with the three foremost fingers of the right hand: the so-called thumb, the so-called index finger, and the middle finger, joined together in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; while the other two—the so-called pinky and ring finger—are to be bent down and idle”¹⁶. Not a single word is said about the Son of God as the God-Man, as Jesus Christ who suffered on the Cross; there is no confession of Him in the three-finger sign. It is a sign without the God-Man, without Christ the Savior. It is not even stated that in the Holy Trinity, He is confessed in two natures.

How could the pious people of that time renounce the two-finger sign—the true sign of Christ—and accept the three-finger sign, which confesses nothing of Christ the God-Man? And yet with such a sign, stripped of Christ, the Cross is made upon a person. Thus, in this savage sign, the Holy Trinity is crucified on the Cross—without Christ, without His humanity, without Man. This amounted, at the very least, to a rejection—through this brutal gesture—of the very essence of Christianity, its core, its central meaning and purpose. Such a three-finger sign could be adopted only either through ignorance of Christianity’s meaning or under coercion.

2. Neither the Eastern patriarchs, nor all the adventurers who came to Moscow from various lands and took charge of ecclesiastical affairs, nor the councils composed chiefly of them, were able to justify their three-finger sign—so foreign to the Church of Christ—by a single authoritative testimony. The council could only cite “peasants”¹⁷. Needless to say, this is a very democratic testimony—one might say, downright proletarian. But in ecclesiastical matters it carried no weight, and moreover, it was false in regard to the entire pious Rus’ of that time, which for centuries had been consistently sealed with the two-finger sign of the Cross: all the “peasants” were two-fingered believers.

In contrast to these evidence-less three-fingered reformers, the pious pastors presented a number of very weighty and authoritative testimonies in defense and substantiation of the two-finger sign. In addition to the proofs already mentioned from St. Cyril of Jerusalem and St. Peter, they also cited the testimonies of St. Meletius of Antioch (4th century), Blessed Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrrhus (6th century), St. Maximus the Greek (16th century), and all the Greek and Eastern Fathers of the Church¹⁸.

They then pointed to the holy Fathers of the Russian Church, all of whom, without exception, made the sign of the Cross with two fingers, as well as the entire Stoglav Council of 1551, in which took part such great bearers of the sign as its very president, Macarius, Metropolitan of Moscow—whom the historian Golubinsky calls “the most renowned of the renowned”—and also the “equal-to-the-apostles” hierarchs Guriy and Varsonofy, wonderworkers of Kazan; Philipp, later Metropolitan of Moscow but at that time only the abbot of the Solovetsky Monastery; and many others.

The Stoglav Council not only confirmed the testimonies of St. Meletius of Antioch and Blessed Theodoret but also issued a condemnation of those who did not make the sign of the Cross and give blessings as Christ did—with two fingers (chapter 31 of the Council). This condemnation, moreover, was borrowed from the ancient Greek Potrebnik (Euchologion).

The two-finger defenders also referred to all the pious Russian patriarchs, in whose books (published by them) the two-finger formation is enshrined and explained. After this followed an endless chain of proofs from holy icons, beginning with the icon of the Most Holy God-Bearer holding the Divine Child in her arms, who blesses with two fingers—a work painted by the Evangelist Luke himself—and ending with many wonderworking icons painted within Russia itself.

How could the Russian Church, after all this, believe the foreign vagabonds who came to Moscow and claimed that the two-finger sign was a dreadful Armenian heresy? To do so would have meant recognizing all her saints and wonderworkers, and indeed the entire ancient Church—both Russian and Greek—as heretics, Armenians, and accursed ones. That would mean branding even the Apostles as heretics, and recognizing Christ Himself—who on all those ancient and holy icons blesses with two fingers—as an Armenian, or worse. No, the pious Russian Church would not go along with this and rejected all these blasphemers, anathematizers, and true heretics. The great Russian people remained faithful to themselves and to their Church.

3. Even the outward appearance of the three-finger sign repelled the pious Russian people. The three fingers were bunched together; it was required that the two upper fingers be bent toward the thumb. In the Nikonian books of that time, the three-finger sign was depicted in just this way. As one writer expressed it, “Everything in the three-finger sign is bent, everything is hunched; it is some sort of timid and slavish gesture.” And indeed, it brought slavery upon all the Nikonians: they lost, in their new church, all the rights inherent to the Church people and were turned into voiceless slaves.

One might object that it was nevertheless formed in the name of the Holy Trinity. But even the curses and anathemas of the Moscow councils and of all those adventurers who led them were, as they themselves declared, uttered “by the good will and grace of the Holy Consubstantial and Life-Giving Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” That did not make the curses gracious. On the contrary—they became even more blasphemous and more impious. Countless horrifying and abominable crimes have been and are committed in the name of God!

Saint John Chrysostom remarks that even sorcerers and magicians use the name of the Holy Trinity for their wicked and impious spells, and that this makes them all the more guilty. The three-finger sign is rightly called by the people a “pinch.” It in no way resembles a solemn banner; it is something commonplace, domestic: a pinch of salt, a pinch of pepper, a pinch of tobacco—here it truly fits and is worthy of its function. But to exalt it as the great banner of Christianity, as the deep meaning and purpose of Christian confession, as Christ’s victory over death and the devil—it is utterly unfit and incapable of expressing any such thing.

The two-finger formation, on the contrary, by its very appearance expresses the banner of the Cross. Among the people, it is even called simply “the Cross.” Two fingers extended upward draw us toward heaven, toward God. It is truly the banner of victory and triumph. The God-Manhood here truly testifies to the drawing of humanity toward God and its reconciliation with Him. The Holy Trinity is also clearly and beautifully depicted in the two-finger formation: the three joined fingers signify the horizon of the world—just as the God-Man Himself said to His apostles: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 28:19), and added: “And, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (28:20). Precisely in the two-finger formation all is present: the Holy Trinity, and Christ Himself in two natures.

4. The three-finger sign was forced upon the Russian people by violence. It became the emblem of the most brutal persecutions of Orthodox Christians. Because of it, and for its sake, pious people were tortured, killed, and burned. The entire country was stained with the blood of holy martyrs. For centuries, millions of the best sons and daughters of Holy Rus’ were persecuted in the name of this three-fingered sign. It became therefore hated by the Russian people. Many came to regard it as the mark of the Antichrist, for only by accepting it could Russians live more or less peacefully in their own land.

The two-finger sign, by contrast, became all the dearer to the pious Russian people—more precious and more sacred—for it too was persecuted: the two fingers were cut off from those who steadfastly kept it. The Nikonians persecuted it with curses and all kinds of blasphemies. They hate it even to this day.

5. The Orthodox Church also refused to accept the so-called name-signing or cheroslognoe (letter-forming) finger formation. The book The Rod (Zhezl) published by the Council of 1666¹⁹ asserts that Christ Himself established this form of blessing: when ascending into heaven, He blessed all His disciples with the name-signing formation—that is, He extended His index finger to represent the letter “I,” and bent His middle finger to resemble the letter “S”; from these two fingers came “IS,” meaning Jesus. He then crossed His thumb with the ring finger to form the letter “X,” and bent His pinky to resemble the letter “S”; thus forming “XS,” meaning Christ. So it is, according to the Slavic and Greek alphabets.

But in all other languages, which have completely different alphabets—for instance, Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Chinese, Japanese, and many others—no arrangement of fingers can form the name of Christ. Why would the Lord Jesus, who sent His disciples to preach “to all nations,” and first of all to the Jews, need to bless them, the Jews, using Greek or Slavic letters (which at that time hadn’t even been invented)? The book Zhezl does not explain this.

But for the literate people of that time, it was clear that Zhezl spoke sheer nonsense about Christ, which they could not believe—no matter the conciliar curses or persecutions. The pious Russian Church remained with the truly Christ-given blessing—the two-finger formation—which is suitable for all peoples and understandable in all languages, while the cheroslognoe formation, “invented” by persons unknown²⁰, was rejected.

Persecution of the Cross of Christ

The Holy Church recognizes three kinds of crosses: the four-pointed, the six-pointed, and the eight-pointed²¹. All of them are venerated and glorified “with holy splendor.” Yet each has its designated place. The eight-pointed cross is the most perfect, in the sense that it fully represents the Cross of Golgotha, upon which Christ was crucified. It is of this Cross that the great prophet Isaiah prophesied: “The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary; and I will make the place of my feet glorious” (Isaiah 60:13). As explained by the Church Fathers, the upright wood of Christ’s Cross was of cypress; the horizontal beam, to which the most pure hands of the Savior were nailed, was of pine; and the footrest, to which Christ’s feet were affixed, was of cedar²².

In fact, the six-pointed cross is also a perfect cross—it was on a six-pointed cross that Christ was crucified, as the Church sings during divine service: “Upon cypress and pine and cedar wast Thou lifted up, O Lamb of God”²³. The remaining two ends of the eight-pointed cross are formed by the titlos, of which the Gospel itself speaks: “Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS” (John 19:19). With this titlos, the event of Golgotha is rendered more fully²⁴.

The four-pointed cross is considered a “reduced” form: it is used in chrismation, anointing with oil, the hand or candle-blessings of priests or bishops, for making the sign of the cross with the hand, and also on sacred vestments, on veils, and on other ecclesiastical items. The eight-pointed Cross, being complete, is placed or depicted in all important and prominent places: atop church domes, on altars, antiminses, prosphoras, loaves for all-night vigils, on the artos²⁵, on the panagiarion²⁶ loaf, and many other places and items.

The crucifixion of the Lord is not depicted on the four-pointed Cross; it appears only on the six- and eight-pointed Crosses. The six-pointed Cross, that is, the three-part cross, according to the Church’s teaching, also represents the image of the Holy Trinity, as is sung during the services: “The three-part Cross is the honorable wood, for it bears the threefold Image of the Trinity.” The three parts of the Cross (the upright, the transverse, and the footrest) symbolize the three Persons of the Holy Trinity²⁷.

It is precisely in this three-part Cross that the image of the Holy Trinity is expressed. Why then seek this image in a two-part, dual-sectioned Cross — i.e., in the four-pointed Cross? Is the former hatred of the six- or eight-pointed Cross of Christ still alive to this day?

Instead of a proper Cross, Fr. Sergius drew two spirit levels (vaterypasy) and marked their ends with three stars each. True, each set of stars numbers three. Then he joined the two levels together at their bases, forming a four-pointed Cross. Perhaps this seems clever by modern standards — but it still does not express the image of the Holy Trinity. Each level individually might carry a triadic image — but once combined, there are six stars, which no longer depicts the Trinity, or at best four stars, which likewise does not fit the threefold image.

But the question must be asked: why this game? Why resort to such gimmickry?

Fr. Bulgakov rightly says: “The image of the Cross is truly the image of the tri-hypostatic Trinity. It is a certain direct symbol, a direct icon of the three-hypostases.” (Orthodox Thought, Paris, 1928, Issue I, p. 69). But this refers precisely to the three-part Cross, not the two-part; to the six-pointed, not the four-pointed.

The footrest of Christ’s Cross is praised and glorified in many places in the liturgical books: “Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at His footstool; for it is holy,” proclaims the prokeimenon during the service to the Cross of Christ²⁸. This exhortation is not applicable to the four-pointed cross, as it has no footrest.

Thus, the Old Orthodox Church in every age glorified the Cross of Christ and kept each of its forms in its proper place. After the division of the Churches into Eastern and Western (in 1054), the eight-pointed cross became the symbol of Orthodoxy, and the four-pointed one—that of Latinism. In Russia, it came to be called the “Latin cross,” or even kryzh (from the Polish word). In the Western Church today, one will not see either the eight- or six-pointed crosses anywhere—only the four-pointed.

In Russia, by contrast, the eight-pointed cross gained a certain precedence. It bore witness to the perfection and purity of Russian Orthodoxy and piety. The eight-pointed cross came to represent not only Christ’s victory over death and the devil, not only ecclesiastical beauty and imperial dominion, but also the triumph of true Orthodoxy—victory over heretics, and above all, over the Latins.

As one modern writer, philosophically inclined, expressed it: “The Orthodox Russian eight-pointed cross is the center of the universe, lifting us up to the heights of Paradise”²⁹. Another contemporary author, commenting on the lamp of the Cross, where it says that “the Cross is the beauty of the Church,” explains: “What is meant here is not only the inner meaning of the beauty of the Cross, but also the external elegance of this most beautiful geometric figure, adorning God’s temples both within and without”³⁰. The eight-pointed cross truly possesses such outward beauty—something that cannot be said of the four-pointed cross³¹.

The Russians firmly believed that the holy churches of the sunken city of Kitezh “were crowned with eight-pointed crosses”³². Everywhere throughout Russia, in every fitting place, the eight-pointed Cross of Christ rose and shone with its holy splendor: atop holy churches of God, on bell towers, above the entrance gates of church enclosures, even above the gates or fences of every Christian home—and within churches, upon the Lord’s altars, on antiminses, on prosphoras, on the loaves for all-night vigils, on the artos, on the panagiarion loaf. It towered above banners, being itself the banner of Christianity; over the church doors, and in all other parts of God’s temple where a Cross was to be placed.

On the breast of every Russian Christian there hung an eight-pointed cross, even if it was affixed to a four-pointed base. On the graves of every Orthodox Christian, an eight-pointed cross was always erected. And at the crossroads of the vast country’s backroads, eight-pointed crosses also rose high, bearing witness to the piety and devotion of the Russian people. In a word, all of Holy Rus’ was adorned with eight-pointed crosses.

This was the state of things before the patriarchate of Nikon. From his time onward began the expulsion of this Cross of Christ from all its places—at first cautiously, gradually, then with increasing insistence, and finally with open brazenness, even with rage, hatred, and blasphemy. It was thrown down from the temples of God, cast out from prosphoras, from the artos, from the all-night bread, even from the panagias and the antiminses. It was persecuted and eradicated everywhere.

With grief and sorrow lamented then the great and unshakable champion of the Old Orthodox Church and of Holy Rus’, the mighty warrior Archpriest Avvakum:

“Hearken, brethren,”—he addressed the faithful children of the Holy Church—“what the apostle Paul commands: stand firm for Christ. We are free men, you and I: Christ has freed us from the yoke of sin, has taken from us that purse full of worms, having nailed it to the three-part cross firmly with four iron nails—not with three, as the Roman church and the Nikonians think; the feet nailed with one nail, on a cross without a footrest. What shall be? That which the devil commands, that they do. As the apostle says: they are held under the yoke of slavery. They are yoked to a four-wheeled chariot and drag it swiftly; the heretics each pull in a different direction. The apostles and the seven holy councils of the Fathers, and the pastors and teachers, filled the Holy Church with dogma concerning the Holy Spirit, adorned her as a bride, sealed her with their own blood together with Christ, and sold her to us; but the children of the Antichrist have plundered and ravaged her, and dragged down from the pinnacle the three-part Cross of Christ, and in its place set up the Latin four-sided cross, the kryzh³³. They cast out the sacrifice from that church and replaced the prayers and the chanting—all was arranged according to the face of Antichrist. What shall be? These are his children; they have smoothed the path for their father. Even if the last devil has not yet come, he will soon arrive. His forerunners have prepared all, and have re-stamped the seal upon poor, blind people, with three fingers and corrupted myrrh³⁴. But you, brethren, edified by your holy faith, stand firm for the Holy Church and die for the traditions of your fathers; do not let thieves rob your mother, in whom you were born through spiritual birth”³⁵.

Other pastors of that time, shocked by this unparalleled mockery of the six-pointed—or rather, eight-pointed—Cross also cried out in the same spirit, for the titlos of Pilate was placed on the six-pointed Cross in particular. It was never placed on the four-pointed Cross, nor is it found in the Roman Church or in the Nikonian church—only a paper inscription is seen there.

Especially outrageous and impious was the expulsion of the eight-pointed Cross of Christ from the prosphoras, from the diskos, and from the Lamb itself, which is transformed into the Body of Christ. In the old Liturgicons, it was depicted there with a circular seal, along with the reed, the spear, the hill of Golgotha, and the skull of Adam—that is, the event of Golgotha was depicted in its fullness. By the decree of the councils of 1666–1667, all of this was abolished, even the circular seal, which according to the interpretation of the holy Fathers symbolized the infinity of the Godhead³⁶. It was removed, and in its place was set a square shape without any symbolic meaning, containing within it a four-pointed cross with the inscription on its sides: “IC XC” with titlos above, and “NIKA.”

This type of cross and inscription was revealed in the heavens to the great Constantine, the Roman emperor, as is recounted in his Life and in Church Histories. Thus, the image of Golgotha was replaced—on the very Lamb itself—with the vision given to Emperor Constantine, and this new form, entirely unknown to ancient Rus’, was enforced with terrifying curses and anathemas³⁷.

There was reason for the pious Russian people to be troubled and to feel the breath of Antichrist from this heretical “four-wheeled chariot,” as Avvakum called this entire assembly that rose up against the Cross of Christ.

The eight-pointed Cross of Christ was persecuted and hated to such a frenzied degree that one of the “hierarchs” of the new church called it “schismatic” and “Brynsky”³⁸. By the command of the 1666 council, seals bearing the eight-pointed Cross were confiscated from prosphora-bakers³⁹, and the prosphora-women were kept in chains for the sole offense of using such seals: “That henceforth such seals should by no means be in the hands of prosphora-women”⁴⁰. Bishops sent strict orders to their dioceses to check whether priests were consecrating with prosphoras bearing the old seal of the Cross; if found, such priests were to be “suspended from divine service,” and the prosphora-women were to be “held in monasteries, chained”⁴¹.

The newly appointed bishop of the newly created Kholmogory diocese demanded annually that his district officials observe whether “the priests in the parishes were serving the Liturgy over five prosphoras stamped with the four-pointed cross”⁴².

According to contemporaries, “then those who were zealous for the new customs—the newly appointed archimandrites in the bishops’ chanceries, abbots, and priestly elders, and elders appointed in the villages, and others taught by them—would seize those Old Orthodox Christians, bind them, torture them in various ways, and whenever they saw someone imprinting the three-part Cross of Christ on prosphoras, they would mock them as schismatics and adversaries, saying they stamp prosphoras in schismatic fashion, and persecuting them for this, they destroyed them”⁴³.

When the Old Believers of that time asked one of the most prominent and authoritative bishops of the new church—Pitirim, Metropolitan of Nizhny Novgorod—“If a priest now celebrates the Divine Liturgy in the Holy Church using the old-printed Liturgicon, on seven prosphoras bearing the image of the Precious Cross with footrest and the usual inscription (‘Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world’), will it be the true Body and Blood of Christ, or not?”—he answered:

“If any priest, ignorant and corrupt, deceived by you, now dares to serve thus, opposing the Eastern and Great Russian Church and the aforementioned conciliar anathema, such are accursed, and cut off, and defrocked, and utterly stripped of priesthood. And from such conciliar-cursed and defrocked, and priesthood-deprived men, there cannot possibly be the true Holy Body and Blood of Christ”⁴⁴.

Here they opposed only the use of seven prosphoras bearing the eight-pointed Cross⁴⁵—and for this alone, they are cursed and stripped of priesthood. Not only was the eight-pointed Cross the reason for the supposed invalidity of the prosphora’s consecration into the Body of Christ, but also the depiction of the spear and reed on the prosphora seal⁴⁶. The entire image of Golgotha was expelled from the altar’s table of sacrifice—and not merely expelled, but condemned, disgraced, and reviled.

Another authoritative hierarch of that time, Archbishop Theophylact Lopatinsky, exclaimed in his book Rebuke: “Behold, O Orthodox, what a deadly poison, what impiety these evil-minded men hold under their eight-pointed cross and their two fingers”⁴⁷.

It should be noted that such episcopal books as the just-mentioned Rebuke and the previously cited Slingshot were the voice of the entire then-ruling hierarchy: they were published with the permission and blessing of the Holy Synod, after prior review and approval. The campaign against the Cross of Christ was the work of the entire Nikonian church. The whole of it is responsible and guilty for it.

From the apostolic times, the Church of Christ established in the rite of baptism the obligatory requirement that the baptized must wear the Cross of Christ upon themselves for their whole life, constantly and unchangingly. In the pre-Nikonian Trebniks, in the rite of holy baptism, it says: “Then the priest, taking the cross with a chain, and signing the one being baptized with it, says: ‘By the power and protection of Thy Precious Cross, preserve him, O Lord.’ And placing it to the infant’s lips, he puts it upon his neck. Then, putting upon him the srachitsa⁴⁸ and the belt, he says: ‘The servant of God, [Name], is clothed with the garment of gladness and rejoicing, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.’”

The Nikonian book correctors removed both the cross and the belt, leaving only the srachitsa. In the new Nikonian baptismal rite, to this day it says only: “And clothing him [the one baptized] with the garments, he says: ‘The servant of God, [Name], is clothed with the robe of righteousness, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen’”⁴⁹. No cross is placed upon the one being baptized according to the new rite—neither an eight-pointed, nor a six-pointed, nor even a four-pointed one.

From all the above-mentioned places where the eight-pointed Cross was expelled and replaced by the four-pointed one, here, in the sacrament of baptism, it was not replaced at all—the Nikonian correctors left it unmentioned and unprescribed. Evidently for this reason, the vast majority of the Nikonians do not make the sign of the cross upon themselves under any circumstances. And those who do, perform it in such a careless and haphazard manner that, in the words of St. John Chrysostom, such a “waving delights only the demons.” It is worth noting that such “waving” is not only performed by laymen but also by clergy—priests, and likewise even the highest hierarchs of the Nikonian–Petrine church.

About Ancient Rus’, before the reforms of Nikon—that is, Old Believer Rus’—Fyodor M. Dostoevsky wrote: “She understood that she bore within herself a treasure which existed nowhere else—Orthodoxy; that she was the guardian of the true image of Christ, which had become dimmed in all other nations”⁵⁰. Nikon and all his fellow reformers, on the contrary, declared this holy Rus’ heretical, Armenian, and accursed—and for this reason they so shamelessly and brazenly persecuted her great treasure: the true image of Christ, replacing it either with the ‘Latin kryzh’ or with the ‘demonic waving’ or with emptiness.

The frenzied contempt for the Cross of Christ and the most cruel persecution of it has led in our own time some archpastors of the “Orthodox” Church to deny its meaning and its essential saving power. The most famous theologian of the new-rite church and its most prominent metropolitan, Anthony Khrapovitsky, chairman of the Synod of the Russian Church Abroad, teaches that the Cross of Christ has no redeeming power—that the redemption was accomplished before the Cross, in Christ’s agony in Gethsemane. The Cross, therefore, completely loses its saving force.

Metropolitan Anthony has had followers in this dogmatic teaching on redemption: Archbishop Ilarion, former inspector of the Moscow Theological Academy; Professor Archpriest Svetlov (of the Kiev Theological Academy); the writer Hieromonk Tarasy, and others. We have no need here to analyze this new dogmatizing of the archpastorate of the new-rite church⁵¹. We merely point out that such a negative attitude toward the Cross of Christ is the result of the centuries-long Nikonian persecution of the eight-pointed Cross.

The pious faithful of the Nikonian era rightly sensed that the banishment of the Cross of Christ from its rightful places was indeed a step on the path to Antichrist. That is why they so zealously, even unto suffering and death, stood firm for its honor and sanctity.