Making sign of Cross: left or right shoulder?

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invisible hero:
I’m a little confused about this: when I touch my forehead, then my belly, where do I go next? My right, or my left shoulder?

I read this webpage orthodox.net/articles/about-crossing-oneself.html

Can anyone comment?

Thanks!
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If you are a Latin (Roman) Catholic you go to your left shoulder first.

If you are a Byzantine Catholic you go to your right shoulder first.
 
However, if you are Roman and keep it Roman at a Byz mass, ie sign left to right, no one will point and laugh.
 
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mgy100:
However, if you are Roman and keep it Roman at a Byz mass, ie sign left to right, no one will point and laugh.
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The converse is also true. I am a Byzantine Catholic who worships quite regularly in a Roman Catholic settng. I have always crossed myself right-to-left, amongst a virtual sea of “left-to-righters”… can’t recall anyone ever taking note of this during Mass.

My children, however, all Byzantine Catholics as well, each went through the Religious Education program offered by our local Roman Catholic parish. Each was, in turn, “corrected” at one point or another with regard to their making the Sign of the Cross “backwards”… we just looked at these “corrections” as opportunities to acquaint their RE classmates and teachers with the fact that not all Catholics are Roman Catholics!

Note: All three kids continued crossing right-to-left, and still do today!

a pilgrim
 
Is there any particular way to position your fingers for crossing in the Latin Rite? From what I can see at mass, most people don’t seem to do the “three fingers at a point, two fingers folded back” position.
 
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Catholic2003:
Is there any particular way to position your fingers for crossing in the Latin Rite? From what I can see at mass, most people don’t seem to do the “three fingers at a point, two fingers folded back” position.
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That is the way we Byzantines do it.

The three fingers at a point represent the Trinity and hte two fingers folded into the palm represent the two natures of Christ.

The traditional way for Latin Catholics is to hold the hand flat.
 
I forgot what movie it was in…but they said
just remember
-spectacles (up)
  • testicles (down)
    -watch (left)
    -wallet (right)
that should help you remember, unless you are a girl, or don’t put your watch on the left and wallet on the right side…hehehe
 
In Russian Orthodox Church difference is in making sign of cross with two fingers extended (dvoyeperstiye) or with three fingers extended (troyeperstiye). Most ancient may have been with one finger extended to symbolize belief in One God in a world of pagans. Dvoyeperstiye was then most common to emphasize two natures of Christ, but was replaced in Greece with Troyeperstiye after Turkish conquest. Russians forced to adopt troyeperstiye at time Patriarch Nikon. Those who do not change their old practice called Old Believers. In 1972 Russian Orthodox Church ArchPriest Sobor decided that both dvoyeperstiye and troyeperstiye are equally reverent and to be allowed.

I have been told that Latin speaking Christians called Holy Spirit Spiritus Sanctus (noun followed by adjective) whereas in Greek was called Hagios Pneumatos (adjective first then noun). Because of change of word order, Latin Christians changed the order of touching shoulders as they say Holy Spirit during crossing.
 
Hey thanks everybody, I really appreciate it.

God bless.
 
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Volodymyr:
I have been told that Latin speaking Christians called Holy Spirit Spiritus Sanctus (noun followed by adjective) whereas in Greek was called Hagios Pneumatos (adjective first then noun). Because of change of word order, Latin Christians changed the order of touching shoulders as they say Holy Spirit during crossing.
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Fascinating. It doesn’t jive with what the Catholic Encyclopedia says, but that part of the article sounded like speculation.

And I had no clue there was a battle over the number of fingers.

::heads off to search Volodymyr’s other posts for interesting tidbits::
 
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mgy100:
However, if you are Roman and keep it Roman at a Byz mass, ie sign left to right, no one will point and laugh.
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I have been to a Byzantine Liturgy a few times and they noticed when I crossed myself left to right. They didn’t laugh or anything. But they knew I was Latin Catholic.
 
The Eastern Catholics (and Orthodox) also cross themselves with their thumb, fore finger and middle finger bunched together to remind themselves of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit…
 
Here is another explanation for Latin rite Catholics crossing themselves from left to right:

However there can be little doubt that long before the close of the Middle Ages the large sign of the cross was more commonly made in the West with the open hand and that the bar of the cross was traced from left to right. In the “Myroure of our Ladye” (p. 80) the Bridgettine Nuns of Sion have a mystical reason given to them for the practice: “And then ye bless you with the sygne of the holy crosse, to chase away the fiend with all his deceytes. For, as Chrysostome sayth, wherever the fiends see the signe of the crosse, they flye away, dreading it as a staffe that they are beaten withall. **And in thys blessinge ye beginne with youre hande at the hedde downwarde, and then to the lefte side and byleve that our Lord Jesu Christe came down from the head, that is from the Father into erthe by his holy Incarnation, and from the erthe into the left syde, that is hell, by his bitter Passion, and from thence into his Father’s righte syde by his glorious Ascension”. **

Here’s the link it’s from:
newadvent.org/cathen/13785a.htm
 
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