Researchers believe that a distinctive feature of any religion that has taken shape is its symbols. For Orthodoxy it is a cross, for Islam it is a crescent moon with a star inside. But there are some symbols that make one think about the probably lost unity of these confessions - the old Christian cross of Nikon's time with a crescent moon at the base.
Denominations use many forms of crosses. So, the Old Believers' cross has rounded shapes, the Catholic is strictly geometric and has four rays, the cross in Orthodoxy is eight-pointed, including two parallel horizontal bars and a third lower oblique, which probably denotes a footrest. This cross is considered the closest to the one on which Jesus was crucified. Another common form of the cross, which can often be found on the domes of Christian churches, is the cross with a crescent moon.
The most ancient Orthodox crosses had a dome that resembled the roof of a house. They can still be seen in old cemeteries, where the tradition of “covering” the memorial cross has been preserved.
Unity of Faith
There are versions that the crescent shows a connection between Christianity and Islam, or between Christianity and paganism, since this symbol existed in both religions. There is also a version that the cross with a crescent shows that there was an era when Islam and Orthodoxy were a single religion. And the shape of the cross with a crescent moon symbolizes this era. With the modern disunity of the two religions - Christian and Muslim, this symbol makes one regret that unity of faith has been lost.
The triumph of Christianity
However, many theologians believe that the crescent (tsata) on the cross has nothing to do with the Muslim symbol. And in fact, these are hands folded together to support the symbol of the Orthodox faith.
In some texts of the Middle Ages, it is said that tsata is the manger of Bethlehem, who took the baby Jesus into their arms, and also that this is a Eucharistic cup that took the body of Jesus.
There is a version that this is a symbol of space, which emphasizes the presence of Christianity throughout the world and has nothing to do with Islam.
The adherents of semiotics believe that a crescent is actually not a crescent, but a boat, and a cross is a sail. And this ship with a sail symbolizes the Church, which is sailing to salvation. Approximately the same content is explained in the Revelation of John the Theologian.
Philosophy of the East in the symbol of Christianity
A very interesting version says that the image of the crescent indicates that Jesus was in the East. It turns out that there are indirect signs that Jesus really was in the East between 12 and 30 years of age (this is a period of his life that is unknown to scientists, i.e. where Jesus lived at that time, what he was doing). In particular, he visited Tibet, which proves the similarity of his words with the ancient Eastern philosophy of that time.
Historians have a different attitude to the cross with a tsat, claiming that the crescent was the official state sign of Byzantium, conquered in 1453 by the Turks, who borrowed the tsat, making it a sign of the Great Ottoman Empire. It is known that there was no planting of Islam in Byzantium, but this already Ottoman sign of power was added to the Orthodox cross over the domes of temples in the 15th century. A kind of sign of reconciliation and unity of two cultures, religions.
