1. Why did they enlarge the ends of the crosses in early time from the time of Constantine, since we see coins with such cross? Thanks in advance. [Amazing colorful mosaics at the basilica of Almyrida, of the early byzantine era (6th century bC), in Apokoronas, Crete, Greece.](https://www.alamy.com/amazing-colorful-mosaics-at-the-basilica-of-almyrida-of-the-early-byzantine-era-6th-century-bc-in-apokoronas-crete-greece-image568479165.html) [Croix Christianisme (Wikipedia)](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croix_(christianisme)) [The Christogram in the mosaic may look like a cross, but it's actually more like a "chi rho" symbol, which puts together the first two captial letters in the Greek word for Christ.](https://www.livescience.com/42761-ancient-church-mosaics-uncovered-israel.html) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/see-the-greek-biblical-inscription-embedded-in-an-ancient-mosaic-floor-discovered-in-israel-180985849/ https://wowcappadocia.com/aidesim-mosaic-basilica.html https://www.dailysabah.com/history/2017/03/03/1600-year-old-byzantine-mosaics-in-kilis-to-attract-tourists [A Church Beyond Compare - The Nea Church, or the Basilica of Saint Mary the New in Jerusalem (543-614)](https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2017/11/a-church-beyond-compare-nea-church-or.html) https://www.wildwinds.com/coins/ric/constantine/t.html I mean this - the enlarged ends of the crosses. It looks like the ankh and the equal sided cross from the near east have enlarged ends, not exactly sure why, there is similarity. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/353884483203978736/ https://www.wildwinds.com/coins/ric/constantine/t.html How can there be sol invictus with Christian cross? [Ancient Numismatic Coins](http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.7.tic.45?lang=hu)

What is the Statue of Homeless Jesus (sleeping on a bench)? Has the Catholic Church officially appreciated it?

Many Catholic churches across the world have an image of a pelican with its chicks. The pelican is depicted as cutting its heart open with the beak, with blood dripping down. Understandably, it symbolises Christ. What was the source of this image? Was there any scriptural base, or was it a code, like the image of fish used by early Christians?

I've seen throughout my life that the accepted symbol of prayer is both hands put together with the fingers pointing upward. I noticed that no one I can recall has ever prayed like that around me. I also noticed it's not in scripture to do that. Where did it originate, and why? ![Drawing of a pair of hands positioned palm-to-palm also known as praying hands ][1]

One of the objections to the Catholic and Orthodox churches is that they use statues/icons as part of worship. (These objects are within churches, believers tend to have a few, etc) > John Calvin - Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book I, Chapter 11, "Impiety of Attributing a Visible Form to God—The Setting Up of Idols a Defection from the True God." But if you go to a reformed church, they have stained glass windows, depicting people or biblical events. It is even possible and likely that a picture book Bible could be there. ### So what exactly is the difference from the reformed protestant position? #### The "Epiphany" Window in the United Reformed Church in Somersville NJ See here for details. // *Side note, I do not understand why they call this the Epiphany window... it looks like the Nativity to me.* ### Mosaic Icon of the Theophany in the Monastery of Osios Lukas ### My old church First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, above the massive organ pipes. Seriously, I crawled around up there... it's huge. This building was finished by them in 1905, and they claim their roots go back to 1758 on their website. ### Every Orthodox Church has this Icon of Jesus Pantocrator on the ceiling. This one is in St. Petersburg in a Russian Orthodox Church. ### St. Giles Cathedral - The Cradle of Presbyterianism in Scotland. The North Transept Window - Jesus Walking on the Sea ### Orthodox Icon of Jesus walking on the Sea, (from the website of the Orthodox church of Osaka )

Throughout the Bible, angels typically appear as men or a masculine form. They're often described as warriors, engaging in battle. (Source ) However, in modern, generally Western (or at least American) culture, angels are thought of as feminine figures, often portrayed by women (or Victoria Secret models). (Source ) **When (about) did this change occur?** --- I realize this may not be a very well-developed question (please, feel free to modify/enhance it), but I think I'm on to something here - even if it is merely a curiosity. I get the feeling that one of the reasons for angels being thought as feminine has something to do with the New Age movement and their concept (and often worship of) Guardian Angels, but it's just a gut feeling or sorts.

I have this pendant I’ve been holding on to for about 28 years now and would like to know more about it. It appears to be gold but is not soft enough to leave a depression when bitten however it did scratch slightly on the back from my tooth. I am curious of its age and where it might have come from? Any information would be helpful and appreciated. I’ve included some pictures of it. I am wanting answers at this time so I know if I should hand it down to my grandchildren or let it go. Photo 1: The front says JUAN on the left side and PABLO II on the right. The ones I’ve looked up have a Latin or different spelling of his name. Photo 2: The back has no words just this depiction. There is also something imprinted on the “chain link”which I cannot read clearly. Which are probably makers marks? Idk?

Who are the artistsenter preformatted text here behind these two paintings and ehat year were they painted (for authentication)? [![enter image description here]] [![painting of Holy Mary and the infant Jesus?]]

I have a leather jacket that just picked up from a girl who was selling it and I didn’t notice that it had a Chimera on its back. Truthfully, the image disturbs me a bit. I don’t want to curse my household neither my family by keeping it. It has a lion head with a goat’s body and a serpent head at the end of its tail. I know the image of the serpent represents Satan & goats could represent unbelievers & maybe the lion could represent the enemy roaring like a lion. Please help me understand this further. Are there any Christian traditions on this Chimerical imagery to indicate if it represents something particularly un Christian, or if it is linked to the occult?

During Eucharistic Adoration in Catholic churches, the consecrated host is kept in a [monstrance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monstrance) on the altar for the faithful to venerate. The design of the monstrance is uniform across the world in that the round enclosure is surrounded 360 degree by sharp projections that look like flames. Or, do they represent the Crown of Thorns, or the rays of divine light? The Image of the [Sacred Heart of Jesus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_Heart) also has similar projections. My question is: **Where did the Monstrance of the Catholic churches get its design from?**

In Catholic art and imagery how is hell symbolized? If a symbol does exist for it, why was this particular symbol chosen? In other words, does hell have a symbol?

I can't remember seeing paintings where Adam, Eve and the snake are depicted in paradise and the snake still having its legs. Are there paintings like that? I guess the snake must have depicted with legs in medieval paintings as it would be accurate. Links to prominent paintings of that kind would be appreciated.

If Man creates art in paintings and sculptures, etc, which are depictions of the natural world such as landscapes flora and fauna, life itself and man accepts and qualifies this to be art. Is the subject of this art, itself art? Or is it just man's depiction of the world in painting etc, art, and the natural world is not art? The proposition that the natural world is not art seems absurd to me. Is it necessary that the natural world needs an artist, such as paintings and sculptures need an artist? Is the artist of the natural world God? If Art is a subjective, and an opinion, and there is no consensus of agreement between everybody with regard to there being objective definition of Art, is anybodies definition of art and there examples of this definition of art, not a depiction of the natural world? I wondered if there was a christian perspective within the bible or there are Christian apologetics that would concur with my argument? Or is it flawed?

I am looking for the name of the cathedral that contains the following mural. What I know for sure is: - That it has been done between 2004 and 2008, more likely in 2008. - It was made in a Catholic cathedral of a Spanish speaking country. - The original file name is "2B CS.jpg" What I think I know is: - It was a city in Latin America. - The city is on or near the seashore.

And do you have any examples of frescoes of Christ with a beard?

Origen, in *Contra Celsus*, Book VII , responds to an attack from Celsus: that Christians are just like Jews in rejecting all forms of images without exception. In this rebuttal by Origen, we clearly see that Greek philosophers, specifically Celsus, did not think of idols as 'actual Gods' made of wood, for stone, but as just representations of them only, dedicated to them, in order to facilitate worship. The Greek worship of the gods did not terminate on the physical object or icon, but through them passed into the actual god never resting on the mere medium or icon. The Greek view of images as facilitating higher worship is ridiculed by Origen: >For what reasonable man can refrain from smiling when he sees that one who has learned from philosophy such profound and noble sentiments about God or the gods, turns straightway to images and offers to them his prayers, or imagines that **by gazing upon these material things he can ascend from the visible symbol to that which is spiritual and immaterial.** Celsus in turn ridicules Christians because they “despise without exception all images” and so do not even have any form of God to facilitate their worship. He further argues that this is contradictory the Christian claim that man was made in the mage of God, therefore God can be represented by physical images and Christians have no excuse not to have images. **The question is how did Origen respond to this claim that Christian despised all images without exception just like Jews? Did origin admit such was the case and argue why, or did he think there were actually some images used in the Church to facilitate worship, like Mary or the Cross and that Celsus was simply unaware of them?**

I was very confused about this so many times. According to Leonardo da Vinci's painting some said that Jesus was a married man. Does the Catholic Church hide any truth?

Christogram (Latin: Monogramma Christi) is a monogram or combination of letters that forms an abbreviation for the name of Jesus Christ, traditionally used as a religious symbol within the Church. As of today, two Christograms namely Chi Rho (XP) and IHS are in use, the former having an artistic look and the latter, a plain look. There is however, an intertwined version of IHS seen in some ancient churches like St Martin's in Northern France. My question is: **Are there other Christograms that were used by early Christians but are no more in use?**

I am reading Ivan Illich's 1987 essay "Hospitality and Pain" (freely available to consult here ) which concerns the Western conception of pain and the body. Illich claims, on page 13, that, after the first millennium, a transvaluation of the Incarnation and the Passion occurred in the West. He suggests that the earliest artistic depiction of the crucifixion emerges in the Rabbula Gospels and draws attention to the way Jesus is depicted as bloodless and with eyes open. > All the Gospel details are depicted: The two thieves, the soldiers throwing dice for the cloak, Longinus with the lance, Mary the mother and John the beloved apostle, the mourning women, the sun and moon hiding their faces. But the figure of Jesus is a symbolic iconogram rather than a picture. Unlike the naked thieves, he is veiled in the long mantle (columbium). The breast wound shows that his body is dead. But his open eyes and the halo around his head reveal the glory of divinity ever present in this body. The work is a Christological statement of the Council of Chalcedon: There are no signs suggesting torture or pain. > > In the first millennium, Christians do not focus on the bodily pains suffered by Christ in his passion. Certainly one reason for this is the fact that they had no term fitting the word field of modern English pain. Pain directly denotes an ache in the body, and only obliquely emotion or feelings. The Greek words, lype, algos and nosos directly mean a state of the soul. And the Old Testament, one long story of woes and miseries in which Israel comes to recognize the hand of the living God, simply has no one word that directly refers to the body in pain. Illich then briefly traces a history of the portrayals of Christ on the cross, describing how, in the 7th and 8th centuries, Jesus is typically veiled in a colobium sindonis , "sometimes reminiscent of the vestments of a priest or king." A century later, Illich claims, Jesus is now undressed down to the loincloth; from the 9th until the 11th centuries, the naked body is found in art, but not commonly. A break occurs in the 12th century - Illich claims the body is now "even more important than the cross." (page 15) > But then, within Hildegard's generation, the iconogram of the Savior gives way to the realistic representation of a tortured man. As far as excruciating pain can be pictured, it is shown above every altar during the late Middle Ages. Once more the history of the perceived body, and the history of bodily pain, together pass a watershed. Just imagine the crucifixion of the Isenheim altar, painted by Grünewald, which I mentioned earlier. The limbs of Jesus are gangrenous, contorted, discolored - like those of the dying patients, to whom the indescribable light that infuses the painting speaks of themystery of salvation through pain. In conversation with David Cayley in 1988 (see transcript here ) Illich makes reference to these same ideas and summarises his point on how compassion, as a lived experience, becomes possible only at that historical moment when pain has been disembedded from the huge and varied matrix of suffering in which it had been diffused: > In 1100, the crucified Christ, who is one of the most important representations which are left to us of what people thought about the flesh, is still very much the Christ of the first millennium. The first 300 years of Christianity knew absolutely no crucifix. From then on, until the 11th century essentially, he who is on the cross is dressed up as a priest, is a person alive, crowned by the sun. Even if his heart is pierced and the blood flows out, you can see that he’s a fully alive person. It’s an icon, an ideogram. It is not a body which is represented. In the 9th century, slowly the clothes of the priest, the king, the columbium, as they call it, disappears from the body and he is represented in his nakedness, but still as a live body with eyes which look at you, even if his heart is opened. By the end of the 12th century, his head is inclined--he’s a dead man. His body is shown tortured. Physical pain is represented as acutely as you can possibly represent it. No wonder twenty years later, Francis will go and begin to kiss the wounds of lepers. No wonder Francis of Assisi will feel a new feeling for which there was no real word nor importance, even in Christianity, compassion so strong that the suffering with the suffering Christ will express itself written on his hands and feet as stigmata, and the epidemic of stigmata will appear all over central Europe. Illich is a reputable historian but I have tried looking for depictions of the Crucifixion from before the 12th century and had a very difficult time finding any examples. In one word: is there any significant truth to his thesis that Christ on the cross was depicted initially robed and "alive" and then a sharp break happened around the 12th century, with Jesus now seen as a pained, hurt body?

I remember this sect from the news, but I forgot the term. Does anyone know what I mean? Aniconism isn't the answer (because I know this noun already) but also because this faction allows their apostles to take selfies and portraits **strictly on a necessary basis** like to fulfill banking, government, and travel requirements. They can take selfies for applying for a bank account, credit card, driver's license, and passports. Their worshipers can use, but are forbidden to take selfies or portraits on, social media like Instagram. They can upload pictures of anything besides their own faces.