www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Sign of the cross - touch chest?

I've always wondered why some people, East and West, after making the sign of the cross touch their chest to end the motion.

Is it just a personal habit that some have, or is there a cultural reason, or some other reason of any significance?

One of the many small things that swim around in my brain...

It's usually a personal devotional action although there may be cultures where this is regularly done (similar to Hispanics kissing their thumbnail after singing themselves).

Fr. Deacon Ed

The officially introduction to Liturgy for children from the Melkite Patriarchate indicates you should put your hand in your chest after signing. A colleague explained me it is intended to avoid kissing the hand (an habit also observed in Brazil, from Portuguese colonization).

How interesting. Why would one do this to ensure they didn't kiss their hand?

Slava Isusu Khrestu

My older Italian relatives and friends told me that they place the thumb slightly under the index finger to form a cross after the blessing and it is the cross that they reverence.

When I asked most of my other relatives, they had no idea and did not even make that small adjustment to form the cross. They simply said that's what we do.

Unworthy
Kolya

small correction!!

The thumb can be placed over the index finger to form the cross also.


Kolya

An Eastern Christian can't do anything that is Latin; this is an evil latinization which is to be avoided at all costs, don't you know? It doesn't matter if it's a sincere form of piety; you just can't do it according to many proper EC's.

But, seriously, the final touching of the chest (or belly) is a completion of the cross form, the base.

Now that you mention it, I have been feeling a strong urge to pray the Rosary when I don't touch my chest...


It's something I've always kinda wondered but never remembered to ask anybody. Your explanation makes sense, but you don't see it explained that way in most "how to" descriptions. I kind of reflexively felt more comfortable doing it that way, but then one day I decided to pay attention to everyone else around me, priests, etc, and they just went from the shoulder back to their sides.

Maybe because I first attended a Greek Orthodox church... I haven't been there in a while, I should go back just to see if it's a Greek thing.

A kind of trivial thing to wonder perhaps, but still interesting to me.

It is a common practice among Armenian Christians, both Catholic and Apostolic, to touch their chest after making the sign of the cross. I have seen it only once in my life where a non-Armenian made it the same way

I and, I believe, many other Melkites sign in this way, although I don't recollect anyone ever explaining why. Thinking about it, I believe that we tend to touch our heart (or where most folks, wrongly, consider their heart to be located).

Many years,

Neil

Many Malankara and Syriac Cath or Ortho do this as well - maybe it's predominantly an Oriental custom?

Alot of Greeks touch their heart (actually, as Neil said: where they *think* their heart is) after making the sign of the cross.

I was also taught this way....Byzantine Catholic

Armenian, Greek, Melkite... seems to be a regional custom, as I expected. Cool.

Thanks for the replies!