[Frederica-l] Foreword to "the Sign of the Cross"

[Frederica at aol.com]

here's my foreword to a book by Fr. Andreas Andreopoulos, "The Sign of the 
Cross," which just came out from Paraclete Press. 

http://www.frederica.com/writings/sign-of-the-cross-foreword.html

Hope you had a good Christmas holiday. I just sent the 
absolutely-we-mean-it-final version of "The Lost Gospel of Mary" to Paraclete. they have it on a 
fast schedule to come out in a little over two months. Amazing what they can do 
these days. 

Meanwhile I have realized to my shock that I scheduled 16 speeches between 
now and the end of February. I'm doing a lot of scrambling to ensure that I'll 
be able to take that much time away from my home & desk and still keep things 
running. I don't have an assistant, and it's amazing how much time it takes 
just to select & book airline tickets, for instance; replying to email is also 
time-consuming, but I try to answer everybody who writes me (sometimes being a 
"Dear Abby"). When I'm traveling, the household bills and the laundry pile up 
too. Still, I can't think of a better job. 

***

Foreword [[“The Sign of the Cross”]]

At my Orthodox church every Sunday I see families arrive at church and go up 
to the iconostasis, to greet the icon of the Lord. The parents stand before 
his searching gaze and make the sign of the cross fluidly: the right thumb and 
first two fingers together to recall the Trinity, and the last two fingers 
together and pressed down to the palm, to recall Christ’s two natures and his 
descent to the earth. They touch forehead, abdomen, right shoulder, left shoulder, 
then sweep the right hand to the floor with a deep bow. After making two of 
these “metanias,” they kiss Christ’s hand, then make one more sign of the 
Cross and a last bow. 

With practice, what sounds like a very complicated ballet becomes second 
nature. Behind the parents come their children, who execute the same moves but 
have a shorter trip to reach the floor. And then there are the toddlers. If you’
re seated to the side, you can see a look of stern concentration come over the 
chubby face. Then there’s a blur, as a tiny fist flies from ear to elbow to 
knee to nose, or just makes quick wobbly circles over the tummy. If these 
gestures were literally analyzed as to their symbolic meanings, they might be 
signaling heresies not yet imagined. But all this commotion is concluded by the 
little one stretching up on tiptoe to kiss the hand of the all-compassionate man 
in the painting. That hand is giving a blessing; it is making the sign of the 
Cross. 

These children are doing what we all do to some extent: we take part in 
mysteries we can only partly comprehend. We do it within the safety of our Father’s 
home, following in the footsteps of our elders. 

In this case, the footsteps go back further than history can discover. It was 
perhaps 204 AD when the brilliant North African writer, Tertullian, composed 
his essay “The Crown.” He begins with a story then in the news: the Roman 
emperor had given laurel crowns to a band of victorious soldiers, but in the 
procession it was seen that one went bareheaded. When challenged by his tribune, 
he responded that he was not free to wear such a crown, because he was a 
Christian. At the time of Tertullian’s writing the soldier was in prison awaiting 
martyrdom. 

Some local church members criticized the soldier for rocking the boat; they 
had been enjoying a period of peace, and feared such boldness would provoke 
another bout of persecution. (Tertullian observed tartly that they were no doubt 
already preparing to flee from one city to the next [Matthew 10:23], “since 
that’s all of the gospel they care to remember… [T]heir pastors are lions in 
peace, deer in the fight.”) But some retorted that nowhere is it written that 
Christians are forbidden to wear ceremonial crowns. 

It is in responding to that challenge that Tertullian gives us a very 
intriguing glimpse into the daily lives of early Christians. There are many things we 
Christians do, Tertullian says, that don’t have a written mandate. In the 
Orthodox tradition, at baptism a person is immersed three times, after renouncing 
the devil, his pomp, and his angels. He makes a profession of faith “somewhat 
ampler…than the Lord has appointed in the Gospels.” Christians receive the 
Eucharist only from the hand of the one presiding over the assembly. “If for 
these and other such rules, you insist on having positive Scripture injunction, 
you will find none…The proper witness for tradition [is] demonstrated by 
long-continued observance”. 

Among the items that had had “long-continued observance,” even at the dawn 
of Christian history, was the sign of the Cross. “In all our travels and 
movements, in all our coming in and going out, in putting off our shoes, at the 
bath, at the table, in lighting our candles, in lying down, in sitting down, 
whatever employment occupies us, we mark our foreheads with the sign of the Cross,” 
Tertullian wrote.

It seems that the sign of the Cross was such an entrenched element of 
Christian practice that a believer would not consider refraining from it. Tertullian 
believed it to be universal, and already ancient in 204 AD. 

I will leave Fr. Andreas to fill in the story of how this sign came down to 
us today, and how its expression varied with time and place. His appealing book 
provides us not only with this history, but with insights into the limitless, 
profound meaning of the sign of the Cross. The sign of the Cross is a prayer 
in itself, one that is easy to include in the busy day – at the sound of an 
ambulance siren, as an expression of thanksgiving, as preparation for a 
difficult task, or on learning of a need for prayer. And, despite its mystery, the 
sign is a gesture simple enough for a child to adopt.

It is my hope that this small book will acquaint many readers with a 
Christian custom that has roots deeper in the common history of our faith than anyone 
knows. The action may at first seem awkward; it may take time to acquire the 
gracefulness of those who have woven it through their prayers for decades. But 
there is hardly a more visible way to “take up your cross,” as the gospel of 
Matthew says, than this, and join the company of those who in all ages have 
borne witness to Christ before the world.




********
Frederica Mathewes-Green
www.frederica.com
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