Medallions, pendants, and bracelets with images of the saints: there are
so many products in some church stores! How should we treat them? Shall we wear
them? Can a cross be a piece of jewelry? What if cross-shaped earrings are
trendy now? Here are the answers by Archpriest Nikolay Markovsky, the parish
priest of Holy Protection Church in v. Zaitsevo.
We have to bear in mind that the Cross is
the symbol of our salvation. We all know perfectly well that it used to be a
tool used for humiliating execution of lower-class criminals in the Roman
Empire. When Jesus redeemed our sins on Mt. Golgotha, the Cross became the sign
of His victory over death and a sacred object for every Christian. You cannot
replace the Cross with anything else, with any icon, medallion, or ladanka.
If an individual wants to wear a medallion
with the image of a saint, it’s fine. Each one of us has a heavenly patron.
There are many people who venerate St. Spyridon of Trimythous, St. Nicholas the
Wonderworker, St. Seraphim of Sarov, and other saints. You mustn’t replace your
cross with these medallions but you can wear them together. The Cross is irreplaceable,
and the rest is just supplementary to it.
Many people treat crosses or medallions
not as sacred objects but as fashion accessories, and choose them accordingly,
in jewelry stores based on their own aesthetic preferences. They wear these
items over their clothes for everyone to see. It is unacceptable, too. A cross
is a very personal item. Everyone carries his or her own cross on his or her
neck, and it’s the cross that the Lord gave us during our baptism. When people show
it off so that it becomes a fashion statement, it’s a sin. You should wear your
cross modestly, under your clothes, and not show it off. The same is true of
medallions and ladankas, too.
There are fashionistas who wear earrings
and other jewelry in the shape of crosses. I think it’s outrageous. We read in
the Gospel that the Lord carried his cross to Golgotha to be crucified on it,
and the cross absorbed God’s Blood. The images of the Cross are sacred for
every Christian. When people wear them in their ears, noses, and so forth, it’s
a sacrilege, which calls for immediate repentance. Let’s take a flag of a
regiment that fought in the Great Patriotic War as an example. It is soaked in
the blood of the soldiers who carried it with them during all battles and died under
that flag. Will you use that flag as a carpet or a fashion item? Everyone knows
that the flag is sacred for the soldiers who survived that war. Similarly, the
cross is sacred for all Orthodox Christians. You mustn’t wear it in the way
that it wasn’t meant to be worn.
You might ask: what about athletes who do
contact sports? They take off their crosses during training sessions because
the crosses can be damaged. My opinion is that it is allowed to take the cross
off and to put it in your pocket. Sometimes doctors also ask their patients to
take off their crosses before a surgery or certain medical examinations. I was
in a situation like that not long ago. The doctors were Christians, so they
simply suggested that I put my cross on my hand, and I complied. That’s an
example of direct necessity, and there’s no getting around it.
Is it required that you wear a cross with
the Crucifixion scene on it?
Of course, a cross should look like a
cross: that is, the Crucifix of our Lord Jesus Christ. If there isn’t the Crucifixion
scene on your cross (e.g. if it’s someone else’s gift or if you were baptized
with that cross), I don’t think it really matters. What you should care about
is treating it as a sacred object and being aware of what you wear on your
neck.
A cross must be a cross, so that anyone
who looks at it should be able to see that it’s a cross and not a pendant, not a
toy, not a pin. The Lord warned, “For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of
my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own
glory, and in his Father’s, and of the holy angels” (Luke 9:26). If you’re an
Orthodox Christian and you go to church and take communion, how can you be
ashamed of your cross? A Christian must be faithful to Christ and not cheat on
him. You can hardly regard those who are attracted to many things at the same
time and carried away by fashion trends as Christians. Those who want to wear
pendants, should buy pendants and leave crosses to those who really care.
Women often wear bracelets composed of
many small icons. Should we regard them as acceptable or not?
There are so many products in church
stores nowadays. There are dozens of various ladankas, medallions, bracelets,
bottles of oil consecrated no one knows where and no one knows by whom, etc. Frankly
speaking, I’m skeptical about things like those. You can’t replace the cross
with anything else. It’s our primary sacred object. When people wear a bracelet
with images of twenty-five saints, what do they do it for? Can’t they pray to
their favorite holy intercessors at home? If you regard that bracelet as a
charm, are you really a Christian? It’s pure paganism.
Years ago, I used to see a whole
iconostasis around some people’s necks: several crosses, medallions, and
something else. Today, it’s not the case anymore. This is another case of
Orthodoxy mutating into paganism. Pagans believe that the more gods you
worship, the better covered you are. You simply need more gods and more
rituals. The Orthodoxy is different. We have only one Savior, Jesus Christ, and
only one Cross. You shouldn’t wear twenty icons and ladankas around your neck.
You’ve got one Cross—a sacred object, which Jesus washed with his blood. What
else do you need?
It is not the cross itself that protects
us. It’s the Lord. It’s our faith. Jesus Christ says, “According to your faith
be it unto you” (Matthew 9:29). If one cross isn’t enough for you, then you
have little faith. Even if someone tears a cross off your neck or if you lose
it or break it, it doesn’t mean that you’re left without God’s protection.
The Cross is the symbol of our faith. You
shouldn’t panic if you lose it. If something happens to your cross, go to a
church store and buy a new one. A cross is not a charm or an amulet. Your new
cross will be as powerful as the one you lost. Don’t be afraid! If you lose
your cross, go and buy a new one, then have it consecrated and wear it. May the
Lord save you!
Recorded by Yekaterina Shcherbakova
Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds
Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds
Source: https://pravlife.org/ru/content/mozhno-li-vmesto-natelnogo-kresta-nosit-medalon-s-ikonoy
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