What does this type of cross mean?

  • Thread starter Thread starter allenirvan
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It is called a Chi ro , it is the Greek symbol for Christ . It isn’t really a cross at all . I’m pretty sure that is what it is based on your picture. However we cannot see the bottom because the Eucharist covers it.
 
It looks like a " P " with an " X " cris-crossing it, can’t make it out properly, but the PX was written in-stead of writing God, which was considered too Holy to represent by mere words.
 
allenirvan said:
There was a priest at our mass on Palm Sunday and he was wearing something similar to the picture below except it was red. I’m just curious what the loop in the upper part of the cross is about?

http://www.holychildhoodchurch.org/dalmatic.jpg
Click to expand...
Well I’ll give off a comment as well…
As already said this symbol is actually 2 Greek letters.
It’s X (chi) and ρ (rho).
The reason for these letters is the Greek word for Christ as written in the Greek: “Χριστός”
As you can see the first letter is the X and the second letter is ρ (rho)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Simple_Labarum2.svg
In some cases (as in your example) the X is changed a little bit and it looks more like the vertical bar on a cross. In that case it is called a Rho Cross.
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
It’s difficult to be sure, but since you say what you saw was “similar” to the picture you posted, I tend to agree with the previous posters. It was the Chi-Rho. The letter, Chi, in Greek, was written as X and Rho as P. With the Chi-Rho, they were written one on top of the other.
However, one difference would be the “horizontal cross-bar” in the picture you provided would be in more of a “V” shape, the top half of the “X”.
I’m not sure what that exact symbol is.
 
Thanks, the one on the priest at mass didn’t have the Eucharist covering it like in the photo I posted, it was like the second one Janet posted. Thanks very much for the replies!😃
 
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