Wearing a Cross

In much of the Orthodox world the cross is put on at baptism and chrismation, when the newly-illumined Christian is clothed in Christ. From then on it is worn under the clothing, against the skin — not primarily as jewelry on display but as something personal and hidden, kept on through the whole of life and, in many places, worn even into the grave. This everyday cross of the layperson is not the same as the ornate pectoral cross of a bishop or priest, which is a mark of clerical office worn over the vestments.

The forms vary — the three-bar Slavic cross, the simpler Greek cross, plain metal or fine gold — and so do the customs about whether it is shown or tucked away. What holds steady is that the cross is received as a gift of the Church at the beginning of the Christian life and carried from there.

The worn cross gathers up several strands of the Gospel at once. It confesses that a Christian glories in nothing else: "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Galatians 6:14). It is a standing summons to discipleship — "let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me" (Matthew 16:24) — so that the metal on the chest recalls the harder cross of daily self-denial. And because the body itself is "the temple of the Holy Ghost" and belongs to God (1 Corinthians 6:19-20), the cross laid against it marks the wearer as Christ's own.

None of this is superstition, yet the tradition does hold that the Cross is a real power and not a mere emblem. St. Athanasius could already write that at the sign of the Cross the demons are put to flight and their magic confounded. The cross a Christian wears simply carries that confession about on the body, day and night — which is one reason it is treated with reverence and not swapped out like an accessory. It belongs to the same instrument of victory the whole Church honors in the Cross and the atonement.

Because it has been blessed, a personal cross is treated as a blessed object: worn respectfully, not left lying carelessly, and — if it is broken or lost beyond repair — retired reverently rather than thrown away. The cross one wears and the sign of the cross one makes are two forms of a single act: with the fingers a Christian traces the Cross on the body, and beneath the shirt the same Cross rests against the heart. Both say the one thing that matters most about a person — that they are baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ.