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The Hebrews asked that Christ be condemned to this  kind of disreputable death.  They wanted to humiliate Him in the eyes of a people who honored and admired Him.  But if Christ had wanted to He could have escaped this kind of death because no one could have come near Him or touched Him.  All He would have had to do was move his little finger and all of His enemies would have been turned to ashes.  Can anyone touch the sun? They would burn up.  All the more, the Hebrews could not touch Christ or do evil to Him.  Christ wanted to suffer this kind of death and endure all of the humiliation attached to it out of an infinite love for mankind, so that He could save it from sin and the devil.  Only with His sacrifice, with His pure and precious blood, would sinful man be redeemed.  Without His sacrifice on the cross it would have been impossible for mankind to be saved.  O Christ, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts because You were crucified for our salvation.  

From the moment that Christ was crucified on Golgotha the cross took on another meaning for those who believe in His redemptive sacrifice.  For believers, it is no longer that terrible tool the ancients used to execute people, but it became that redemptive instrument, the means by which mankind was saved.  And this change in meaning of the cross from an instrument of condemnation to an instrument of salvation is one of the most astonishing miracles of Christianity.  That cross that evoked terror before Christ came to the world, that cross calls forth feelings in us of deep and infinite gratitude to Him, Who for mankind's sake, descended every step of humiliation when He stretched out His immaculate body on it and offered Himself up as a pure and blameless sacrifice.  

There is nothing that reveals the love of God for mankind more than the cross of Christ.  "God is love," (1 John 4: 8, 16) was written on it with Christ's blood.  That is why it became the holiest symbol of the Christian religion.  And the Christian people are distinguished from all of the other religions by the cross.  But there is nothing that the enemies of Christ hate more than the cross.  The Hebrews who crucified Him threw it into a pit of dung.  Idolatrous kings and emperors who came afterwards hated it so much they continued to crucify people.  

This persecution lasted three hundred years until Constantine the Great came and honored it.  Consonant with the miraculous vision he saw in the sky, he put the cross on his banner.  Then, St.  Helen, his mother, went to Jerusalem and found the precious cross.  In Constantinople, Constantine the Great erected a great column and put a cross at the top of it, which he had illuminated at night so that it could be seen throughout the city.  It had the inscription: "One is holy, one is Lord, Jesus Christ to the glory of the Father.  Amen." In addition, Constantine forbade the execution of people by means of the cross and issued a decree that anyone who blasphemed it would be punished severely.  

All of the pagan symbols were then abolished and only the cross remained the eternal symbol of the true religion.

The cross is everywhere.  The cross is on the flags of Christian armies, the cross is on seals, the cross is on the crowns of kings and emperors, the cross is on the domes of churches, the cross is on the vestments of clergy, the cross is on cenotaphs, the cross is everywhere.  The Church only forbade the carving of the cross on streets and on squares, or woven in rugs and carpets which cover floors, so that it would not be stepped upon and scorned by people.  It is a sin to step on the cross.  That is why priests and parish council members should make sure that they do not have any rugs in the churches with crosses on them, and also that housewives do not use carpets with crosses on them in their homes.  This is something that Christians must stringently look out for because in our times atheists use various means to pollute whatever is sacred and holy in our religion.

But we Orthodox Christians must honor the precious cross as we were taught by the ancient teachers and fathers of our Church.  And we will honor the precious cross first and foremost if we cross ourselves properly.  We say this because some modern Christians are embarrassed to cross themselves when the need arises; they do not do it properly as the Church expects it to be done; they do it with a quick motion of the hand which is not the sign of the cross but an insult.  You would even say they were playing the violin.  The proper way to cross oneself, my Christians, is to unite the first three fingers of the right hand (Holy Trinity have mercy on the world), bring them to your forehead, afterwards to your belly (O Christ, Who came down from the heavens to earth and took human flesh from the All Holy Virgin, we thank Thee), then bring it to the right shoulder and finally to the left (Lord, do not throw me into hell but remember me when You come into Your kingdom).  

With these kinds of holy thoughts and feelings, O Orthodox Christian, cross yourself.  And they will help you to live the right kind of life and be in accord with what the cross of the Lord teaches.  For it teaches truth, justice, freedom, self-denial, meekness, peace, forgiveness, love.  

Do you have these? Do you believe in the Crucified One? Do you obey His Commandments? Do you live a crucified life, crucifying your sinful ego and your passions? Then when you cross yourself, even if you have only crossed yourself once, it will perform miracles.  If, however, you do not live a Christian life but live an Antichristian one with lies and hypocrisy, with hatred and evil, even if you cross yourself a thousand times you shall not save yourself.

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About the Author

Bishop Augoustinos Kantiotes (b. 1907) is Greek Orthodox bishop of Florina. His Grace is a defender of traditional Orthodox beliefs. He is a writer of spiritual literature and is credited for the spiritual renewal of Greece and the establishment of traditional Orthodox theology. He has preached countless sermons which have been recorded and distributed worldwide.  He has published over 80 books in Greek, of which over 25 have appeared in English, and other languages.  Accordingly, he is known as a classic writer in the English speaking world of Orthodox Christianity.