The inspiration for this brief study was a question about the sign of the cross in the signatures of bishops ‘as a symbol of episcopal authority’. The results of our research were unexpected. We found that, for many centuries, the cross was used not only in the signatures of hierarchs, emperors and officials, but also in those of all ordinary Christians, even in the cases of the illiterate, who, instead of a signature, made a ‘mark’, the cross, and someone else filled in the name. It’s clear from this that the cross in hieratic signatures has nothing to do with the authority of bishops, nor with any other human authority, but was simply part of the general usage of the cross in ...





















