I have seen in the orthodox church they make the sign of the cross different then the Latin church.
What is the reason that ours is different and can we make the sign of the cross either way??
Catholic Encyclopedia states, the sign of the cross, about 1000 A.D.: “At this period the manner of making it in the West seems to have been identical with that followed at present in the East, i.e. only three fingers were used, and the hand traveled from the right shoulder to the left. The point, it must be confessed, is not entirely clear …”
In both East and West, the sign of the cross was made from right to left until the Middle Ages. Father Cassian Folsom, O.S.B., President of the Pontifical Liturgical Institute, explained the development of the current Western practice (left to right) in a 1997 talk:
It’s interesting to note that in the thirteenth century, Pope Innocent III (contemporary with St. Francis of Assisi) instructed the faithful on the meaning of the sign of the cross in these words: “The sign of the cross is made with three fingers, because the signing is done together with the invocation of the Trinity. This is how it is done: from above to below, and from the right to the left, because Christ descended from the heavens to the earth, and from the Jews (right) he passed to the Gentiles (left).
Note that Pope Innocent is describing what the custom was in the West. In the thirteenth century the East and the West still made the sign of the cross in the same way. The pope goes on to say: “Others, however, make the sign of the cross from the left to the right, because from misery (left) we must cross over to glory (right), just as Christ crossed over from death to life, and from Hades to Paradise. [Some priests] do it this way so that they and the people will be signing themselves in the same way. You can easily verify this—picture the priest facing the people for the blessing—when we make the sign of the cross over the people, it is from left to right.”
So the people, imitating the blessing of the priest, began to sign themselves from left to right. Be that as it may, centuries have gone by since then, and we in the West make the sign of the cross from left to right, with the palm open.[1]
cuf.org/faithfacts/details_view.asp?ffID=171
and usually the hand is “open” but some also use “three fingers” when crossing themselves.
(I never did that when I was Catholic though, merely the Orthodox way of signing. I only did the cross with metanoia when I began to regularly attend Divine Liturgy in 2007).
No biggie though.