The Christian cross is a familiar religious symbol of Christianity. It is significant for Christians based on the gospel accounts of the New Testament, which describe the manner of Jesus Christ's death as crucifixion. This painful method of execution was common for slaves and non-Romans convicted of serious crimes in the Roman Empire. It was an innately disgraceful association in the eyes of the Roman world for at least 250 years after the death of Jesus.

The type of cross actually used by Romans for crucifixion is now known as St. Anthony's Cross, shaped like the letter "T", unlike the traditionally depicted Latin cross.

History and usage

During the first three centuries of Christianity, the cross was rare in Christian iconography as it depicts a purposely painful and gruesome method of public execution by impalement and/or exposure. The Ichthys, or fish symbol, was used by early Christians to covertly identify each other. The Chi-Rho monogram, which was adopted by the Constantine I in the fourth century as his banner called the labarum, was an Early Christian symbol of wider use.

Descriptions of the cross are to be found in Christian writings from the early 2nd century onwards. The Cross first became prominent in Christian imagery during the 3rd century in Egypt. A Christian bust from the site of an early church in Fayoum, Egypt, shows an ankh partially evolved, changing, over time, from a round upper section, to one that is half-way through a "morphing process", leading to the Coptic cross . It is being worn, in this half-way mode, as a necklace on the bust.

An early third century reference (there are few others) is in Clement of Alexandria's unfinished Stromateis or 'Miscellanies' (book VI): he speaks of the Cross as tou Kuriakou semeiou tupon, i.e. "the symbol of the Lord." His contemporary Tertullian could designate the body of Christian believers as crucis religiosi, i.e. "devotees of the Cross" (Apol., chapter xvi). A crucifix or cross is considered by some Christians as one of the most effective ways of warding off evil.

In Christianity, the cross represents Christ's victory over death and sin, since it is believed that through His death he conquered death itself. Catholic Christians often make the sign of the cross by moving their right hand so as to draw a cross upon themselves. Orthodox Christians make the sign with their right hand as well. Making the sign of the cross was already a common Christian practice in the time of Augustine. One of the twelve great feasts in the Eastern Orthodox Church is the Exaltation of the Cross on September 14, which commemorates the consecration of the basilica on the site where the (allegedly) original cross was discovered in 326 by Helena of Constantinople, mother of Constantine the Great. In the Catholic Church the comparable feast is the Invention of the Cross, celebrated on May 3.

The Cross was the first of the Instruments of the Passion that came to be venerated in the form of relics. In time, even the "Holy Nails" that were used to nail Christ to the cross would be sought out, discovered, elaborately mounted as relics, and venerated in Catholic circles. A nail, said to be one of these, is mounted in the Iron Crown of Lombardy, preserved in the cathedral of the former Lombard capital, Monza.

Numerous relics are claimed to be pieces of the True Cross, often brought to Europe during the Crusades. By the 16th century, skepticism surfaced: Erasmus joked that one could build a ship with all that wood. Santo Toribio de Liébana in Spain holds the biggest of these pieces and is one of the most privileged pilgrimage sites for the Catholic Church. Even a large portion of the cross of the 'good thief' crucified with Jesus (who came to be given the name Dismas in medieval legend) has been recovered; it is reverenced at Rome in the altar of the Chapel of the Relics at the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.

Connected with the cross is the medieval legend of the Tree of Jesse, from the wood of which the cross was said to have been fashioned.

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