The Sign of the Cross #

The sign of the Cross is a gesture made with the fingers of the hand arranged in a specific way. According to apostolic tradition, to make the sign of the Cross one must join together three fingers of the right hand—the thumb, ring finger, and little finger—as a sign of faith in the Holy Trinity. The remaining two fingers are extended (with the middle finger slightly bent), symbolizing the two natures in the God-man Jesus Christ: the divine and the human.

Having arranged the fingers in this manner, we bless ourselves with the sign of the Cross by placing the two extended fingers of the right hand:

1. Upon the forehead — thus confessing that Christ, begotten before all time of the Father, is our true Head;

2. Upon the stomach (at the level of the waist) — thus confessing the Lord’s descent to earth and His birth of the Most Pure Virgin Mary;

3. Upon the right shoulder — as a sign of our faith in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, His Ascension into heaven, and His sitting at the right hand of God the Father (that is, His reigning together with the Father);

4. Upon the left shoulder — as a sign of our faith in the future Second Coming of Christ, when He shall come to judge the living and the dead, placing the righteous on His right hand, and the sinners on His left.

At each of these points, it is necessary to physically touch the body with the two fingers—so that the contact can be felt bodily, even through clothing. After this, we return the hand to its normal position and, if appropriate, make a bow.

Orthodox Christians have made the sign of the Cross in this way from time immemorial. But contrary to the tradition of the ancient Orthodox Church and the Stoglav Council of 1551 of the Russian Church, Patriarch Nikon, by his sole authority in the year 1653, abolished the two-fingered sign of the Cross and replaced it with the three-fingered one.

Which form of finger arrangement is more ancient, more correct, and more acceptable—two-fingered or three-fingered? #

This question has not lost its significance even in our time. For nearly three hundred years, disputes have continued between the Old Rite (Old Believer) and the New Rite (Nikonian) traditions. And although it has now been indisputably and scientifically proven that the two-fingered form is of the most ancient origin (from apostolic times), and that the three-fingered form is a recent rite with no foundation and, moreover, dogmatically erroneous,¹ nevertheless, the Nikonians refuse to abandon it and continue to hold fast to it as to a supreme holy object, as to an unshakable dogma of faith.²

Even now, the New Rite Church continues to assert in the prefaces to the Psalters, Horologia, and Prayer Books it publishes—as well as in its textbooks on the Law of God—that the two-fingered sign is an Armenian and heretical practice, while the three-fingered sign is apostolic tradition. Even in such a liturgical book as the Akathist to Saint Dimitry, Metropolitan of Rostov, it is still proclaimed—before God Himself—that the ancient Orthodox rites, especially and chiefly the two-fingered sign of the Cross, are of heretical content and origin, allegedly stemming from a heretic named Martin the Armenian, who in fact never existed.³

If even in our “enlightened” and nearly faithless age—an age of “cultured” and “educated” people steeped in all forms of liberalism—the question of finger arrangement holds such tremendous confessional significance, then one can imagine how deeply it stirred and troubled the pious people of the 17th century, for whom every church custom bore unshakable weight.

At that time, the question of the two- or three-fingered sign of the Cross was terrifying and fateful—it was a matter of life and death. To accept the three-fingered sign meant becoming a full citizen and a “true” Orthodox Christian; to remain with the two-fingered sign meant certain doom: to be cursed, constantly persecuted, subjected to agonizing torture, and either burned in a log house, executed on the scaffold, drawn and quartered, or to spend one’s entire life hiding in forests and other inaccessible places, on the distant edges of the homeland—or even beyond its borders.

Why then did the pious Russian pastors of that time reject all earthly goods, willingly face the most dreadful tortures and deaths, and yet not abandon the two-fingered sign of the Cross? They had very firm and truly unshakable grounds for this.

1. Christianity is the religion of the Cross-bearing and of the God-manhood. “At the center of the Christian mystery stands the Cross on Golgotha—the crucifixion and death on the Cross of the Son of God, the Savior of the world. In the Son, in the God-man, is contained the whole human race, the entire multitude of humanity, every human face. Humanity is part of the God-manhood; Christianity is essentially anthropological and anthropocentric—it raises 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 existence; in him is laid the meaning and purpose of the creation of the world.” This Christian worldview and confession is expressed through the two-fingered configuration of the hand.

Even St. Cyril of Jerusalem (4th century), in his Catechetical Lectures, exhorted: “Let us not be ashamed to confess the Crucified. Let us boldly trace with our hand⁴ the sign of the Cross on our forehead and on everything else” (Lecture 13, edition of 1822). The Crucified specifically. At the head of the Christian confession stands the Son of Man, who lifted our sins upon the Cross.

So also says St. Peter of Damascus (8th century, or according to other sources, 12th century): “Two fingers and one hand represent our Lord Jesus Christ crucified, who is known in two natures and one hypostasis”⁵ (Philokalia).⁶ In the two-fingered sign, the index finger and the middle finger represent the divine and human natures of the Son of God. According to catechetical instruction, the middle finger should be slightly bent at the upper joint, signifying the belief that “the Lord bowed the heavens and came down to earth.” The remaining fingers—the thumb and the two last—are joined together to represent the Holy Trinity.

As we can see, the two-fingered configuration involves all five fingers to express the confession of the Holy Trinity and of the two natures in Christ. Yet in the act of making the sign of the Cross or of blessing, only two fingers touch the forehead, the stomach, the right shoulder, and the left. Theologically and dogmatically, the two-fingered sign is a fully Orthodox confession. Most importantly, it clearly and distinctly expresses—and if one may say so, proclaims—the central essence of Christianity: the crucifixion and death on the Cross of the God-man, and with Him, the co-crucifixion of all humanity. “We preach Christ crucified,” proclaims the Apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 1:23). This same message is embodied in the two-fingered sign. It is, in essence and visibly, the evangelical and apostolic preaching.

In the three-fingered sign, however, there is neither this central Christian confession nor this apostolic preaching. The Council of 1667 dogmatized: “The sign of the precious and life-giving Cross is to be made upon oneself with the three foremost fingers of the right hand; the finger called the ‘great’ [thumb], and the one near it called the ‘index,’ and the middle finger are to be joined together in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; the other two fingers—the so-called ‘little finger’ and the one beside it—are to be bent and idle”.⁷

Nothing is said about the Son of God as the God-man, as Jesus Christ who suffered on the Cross; not a single word is spoken of Him. There is no confession of Him whatsoever in the three-fingered sign. It is a sign without the God-man, without Christ the Savior. It is not even stated that within the Holy Trinity, He is confessed in two natures.

How could pious people of that time renounce the two-fingered sign—the true sign of Christ—and accept the three-fingered sign, which does not at all confess Christ the God-man? By such a sign, stripped of Christ, the Cross is traced upon a person. Thus, the Holy Trinity is figuratively crucified upon the Cross—without Christ, without His humanity, without Man. This was, at the very least in this sign, a denial of the very essence of Christianity—its heart, its central meaning and purpose. Such a three-fingered sign could only be accepted either through ignorance of the meaning and significance of Christianity—or by force…

2. Neither the Eastern Patriarchs, nor all the adventurers who arrived in Moscow from various lands and began managing ecclesiastical affairs there, nor the councils largely composed of these very foreigners—none of them could substantiate their alien-to-the-Church-of-Christ three-fingered sign by a single authoritative witness. The council could only appeal to the so-called “peasant men”.⁸ A rather democratic testimony, to be sure—one could even call it outright proletarian. But in matters of the Church, it held no weight, and, furthermore, it was false—claiming that all the “peasant men” throughout then-pious Rus’, which for centuries had been steadfastly safeguarded by the two-fingered sign of the Cross, were allegedly all users of the three-fingered sign.

In contrast to these unfounded “three-fingered witnesses,” the pious pastors presented a number of very weighty and highly authoritative testimonies in defense and justification of the two-fingered sign. In addition to the previously mentioned St. Cyril of Jerusalem and St. Peter of Damascus, they cited St. Meletius of Antioch (4th century), Blessed Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus (6th century), the venerable Maximus the Greek (16th century), and all the Greek and Eastern Fathers of the Church. Then followed the saints 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, which included such great defenders of the sign as its very chairman, Metropolitan Makary of Moscow, whom the historian Golubinsky calls “the most eminent of the eminent”; also “equal-to-the-apostles” hierarchs Guriy and Barsanuphius, the wonderworkers of Kazan; Philip, who would later become Metropolitan of Moscow and was at that time 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 it also pronounced condemnation upon those who did not make the sign of the Cross or give blessing with two fingers as Christ had done (Chapter 31 of the Council). This very condemnation had even been drawn from an ancient Greek Potrebnik (service book). The defenders of the two-fingered sign also cited all the pious Russian patriarchs, in whose published books the two-fingered arrangement was prescribed and explained.

Next came a wealth of iconographic evidence, beginning with the icon of the Most Holy God-bearer holding the Divine Child, who blesses with two fingers—an icon said to have been painted by the Evangelist Luke himself—and continuing with many wonderworking icons painted within Russia itself. How, then, could the Russian Church permit wandering foreign vagrants in Moscow to claim that the two-fingered sign was some sort of dreadful Armenian heresy? To do so would be to declare all the saints and wonderworkers, indeed the entire ancient Church—both Russian and Greek—to be heretics, “Armenians,” accursed ones. It would mean calling even the Apostles heretics, and acknowledging Christ Himself—who blesses with two fingers on all those ancient and holy icons—as an “Armenian.” No, the pious Russian Church did not yield to this, and instead rejected all such slanderers, anathema-givers, and actual heretics. The great Russian people remained true to themselves and to their Church.

3. Even the outward appearance of the three-fingered sign repelled the pious Russian people. The three fingers are bunched together; it was required that the two upper fingers be bent toward the thumb. In the Nikonian books of that time, the three-fingered sign was illustrated in this way. As one writer put it: “In the three-fingered sign everything is bent, everything is hunched; it is a timid and servile gesture.” And indeed, it brought servitude to all the Nikonians: they lost in their new church all the rights once belonging to the people of the Church, and were turned into voiceless slaves. One might argue that the three-fingered sign was nonetheless made in the name of the Holy Trinity. But even the very curses and anathemas of the Moscow councils and the adventurers who led them were pronounced, as they themselves proclaimed, “by the good will and grace of the Holy Consubstantial and Life-giving Trinity: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” That did not make these curses filled with grace. On the contrary, it made them all the more blasphemous and impious.

How many grave and repugnant crimes have been—and continue to be—committed in the name of God! St. John Chrysostom remarks that even sorcerers and witches invoke the name of the Holy Trinity in their wicked and ungodly spells, which only renders their deeds more criminal. The three-fingered sign has been justly called by the people a “pinch.” It bears no resemblance to a solemn standard; it is something commonplace, domestic—a pinch of salt, a pinch of pepper, a pinch of tobacco—here it is fitting and well-suited to its function. But to exalt it as the great banner of Christianity, as the profound meaning and aim of Christian confession, as the victory of Christ over death and over the devil?—For such a purpose, it is wholly unsuitable and incapable of expressing such a truth.

The two-fingered configuration, on the contrary, by its very appearance expresses the sign of the Cross—among the people it is even called simply “the cross.” The two fingers, stretched upward, draw our gaze heavenward—to God. It is truly a banner of victory and triumph. The God-manhood is here visibly bearing witness to the reconciliation and union of humanity with God. And in the two-fingered sign, the Holy Trinity is also clearly and beautifully depicted: the three joined fingers show the expanse 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” (Matt. 28:19), and He added: “And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” (v. 20). Behold—in the two-fingered sign, all is present: the Holy Trinity, and Christ Himself in two natures.

4. The three-fingered sign was forced upon the Russian people—it became the emblem of the fiercest persecutions against Orthodox Christians. Because of it, and for the sake of it, 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. Therefore, many began to consider it the seal of Antichrist, since only by accepting it could Russian people live more or less peacefully in their own homeland. The two-fingered sign, then, became all the more beloved to the devout Russian people—more precious and more holy—for it too was persecuted: the two fingers were cut off from those faithful who steadfastly preserved it.

The Orthodox Church also cannot accept the so-called “name-signing” or cheroslozhnoe (letter-signing) finger arrangement. The book The Rod (Zhezl), published by the Council of 1666, claimed that Christ Himself established this method of blessing: that when He ascended into heaven, He blessed His disciples with the “name-signing” configuration—that is, He extended His index finger to represent the letter “I,” bent the middle finger to resemble the letter “C,” (latin “S”) thereby forming the abbreviation “IC” (Jesus); then, He crossed the thumb with the ring finger to form the letter “X,” and bent the little finger to look like another “C,” resulting in “XC” (Christ). This, so the story goes, follows the Slavonic script and Greek alphabet.

But on all other alphabets—those of the Hebrews, Arabs, Syrians, Chinese, Japanese, and many others—the name of Christ cannot be portrayed using fingers. Why then, the Lord Jesus, who sent His apostles “unto all nations,” and first of all to the Jews, would have needed to bless them, the Jews, with Greek or Slavonic letters—which at that time had not even been invented—the book The Rod does not explain. But to the literate people of that time it was clear that The Rod was telling a blatant untruth about Christ, which they could not believe—no matter the conciliar anathemas or the persecutions.

The devout Russian Church remained with the true blessing of Christ—the two-fingered sign—which is acceptable for all peoples and clear to all languages, and it rejected the cheroslozhnoe sign, invented by persons unknown.⁸

F.E. Melnikov From Short History of the Old Believer Church

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