Which cross to choose for the baptism of a child

The birth of a child is one of the most beau­ti­ful moments in a per­son­’s life. The rite of bap­tism is nec­es­sary for the baby to receive the pro­tec­tion of the Almighty, his Guardian Angel and God’s Bless­ing. He is pre­sent­ed with the first mate­r­i­al gift — a cross, which should accom­pa­ny him through­out his life. It sym­bol­izes faith in Divine pow­er and recalls the sac­ri­fice of the Son of God Jesus in the name of atone­ment for the sins of peo­ple.

The ide­al time for bap­tism is the 8th or 40th day after the baby is born. Accord­ing to the Ortho­dox rite, the priest places a cross on the chest of the bap­tized per­son after his three-fold ablu­tion in a font with con­se­crat­ed water and puts on him a bap­tismal gar­ment. From that moment on, the Life-Giv­ing Cross fills the whole life of the child, his body and soul with grace.

The rules and nuances of what kind of cross you need to bap­tize a child, who should give it and how to choose it suc­cess­ful­ly, we will tell in this arti­cle.

What should be the pectoral cross for christening?

There are no clear rules in this regard. Tra­di­tions in every Ukrain­ian city and vil­lage are dif­fer­ent.

Where to buy a cross for bap­tism is also not par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant. There is only one mer­it in pur­chas­ing this chil­dren’s jew­el­ry in a church shop. Unlike sta­tion­ary jew­el­ry out­lets and online stores, these goods are already con­se­crat­ed in the church. Shop dec­o­ra­tion must be con­se­crat­ed before the cer­e­mo­ny or in the tem­ple at the morn­ing ser­vice.

It is per­mis­si­ble to give an old breast cross, inher­it­ed, to a child if he can wear it, but before that, con­se­crate. Do not wor­ry that he will inher­it the fate of the deceased. This is just a super­sti­tion that has nev­er been con­firmed.

Regard­less of which cross is giv­en for chris­ten­ing, it will pro­tect the child from evil, fail­ures and ill­ness­es, pro­vid­ed that it is con­stant­ly on the body, under clothes, which is why it is called wear­able.

What kind of cross is needed for the baptism of a child in the Orthodox tradition?

The main require­ment for which cross is used for chris­ten­ing in Ukraine is com­pli­ance with the canons of Ortho­doxy. The Chris­t­ian Church only rec­og­nizes 6‑pointed and 4‑pointed cross­es, not 8‑angled ones. The prod­uct should be with a cru­ci­fix, where there are two nails at the feet of Christ. They sym­bol­ize two thieves cru­ci­fied next to him. The one to his left mocked him along with the crowd. On the right — after all, he rec­og­nized Christ as the Mes­si­ah and repent­ed, there­fore the foot of the cross is always raised to the right side. In Catholi­cism, three nails are used.

On the Ortho­dox cross at the head of Christ there is no light­ning, and his arms are straight. There are three cross­bars in total: the upper one with the ini­tials I.N.Ts.I. (Jesus Nazarene, King of the Jews). On the cen­tral one are the hands of the Sav­ior, on the low­er one — the legs. It is a sym­bol of the road to God — from the fall of man to his purifi­ca­tion through repen­tance.

The prayer “Save and Save” must be engraved on the inside.

A mod­el of a cross with­out a cru­ci­fix is ​​just a jew­el­ry acces­so­ry that is not suit­able for the rite of bap­tism and con­stant wear on a naked body. Such prod­ucts are beau­ti­ful­ly encrust­ed with pre­cious stones, cov­ered with col­ored or plain enam­el, orig­i­nal com­po­si­tion­al orna­ments, nom­i­nal or dat­ed engrav­ings are applied.

To deter­mine which baby cross will be the best pur­chase for a chris­ten­ing, you need to con­sid­er the fol­low­ing cri­te­ria:

1. man­u­fac­tur­ing mate­r­i­al. Sil­ver and gold do not cause aller­gies or oth­er adverse reac­tions when in con­tact with the skin. Usu­al­ly pick up a chain of the same met­al as the pen­dant. In addi­tion to the cross, you need a soft chain with an adjustable length of 40–50 cm so that the child can wear it when he grows up, or a gai­tan cord made of leather, rub­ber, silk, cot­ton or nylon with a con­ve­nient clasp. It is impor­tant that it does not tight­en the neck too much. Plain gold chains are much more resis­tant to air, sun and sweat. Sil­ver can black­en over time. Which cross to buy for chris­ten­ing — wood­en, gold, alu­minum, or sil­ver — each option has its pros and cons. Jew­el­ry made of sil­ver is cheap­er than gold, they have antibac­te­r­i­al prop­er­ties, are lighter in weight;

2. try. The most pop­u­lar mod­els of chil­dren’s cross­es are made of white or rose gold 585 or sil­ver 925;

3. pro­duc­tion tech­nol­o­gy. Like oth­er jew­el­ry, cross­es are made using the stamp­ing or cast­ing method. A stamped cross for a baby’s chris­ten­ing is not suit­able because of the sharp edges that can injure the baby’s del­i­cate skin and dam­age clothes. It is bet­ter to choose one-piece cast jew­el­ry with safe edges that are round­ed;

4. weight and size. These para­me­ters depend on the age of the god­son. For babies up to a year, minia­ture mod­els weigh­ing up to 1 g are suit­able. Up to 3 years — up to 1.5 g, 2 cm long. Up to 5 years — medi­um-sized jew­el­ry 2.5–3.5 cm long. Sil­ver items are larg­er and longer, but not much, and they are always thin­ner and lighter in weight than gold ones;

5. the form. The main require­ment for what a cross should be for the bap­tism of a child is the absence of large pro­trud­ing ele­ments, volu­mi­nous stone inserts, and sharp edges. It is nec­es­sary to give pref­er­ence to sim­ple smooth prod­ucts with round­ed ends;

6. design. This char­ac­ter­is­tic most of all depends on the gen­der of the child. For girls, it is cus­tom­ary to choose open­work mod­els with flo­ral pat­terns. Small flat gem­stone inserts are accept­able. Boys are usu­al­ly giv­en sim­ple cross­es, with­out any dec­o­ra­tive ele­ments. These can be prod­ucts with selec­tive black­en­ing or com­plete­ly with black enam­el.

The clas­sic form is uni­ver­sal. She nev­er goes out of fash­ion.

How to choose a cross for baptism, given the symbolism of the stones

When choos­ing jew­el­ry for chil­dren, as well as for adults, it must be tak­en into account that each stone means some­thing and pro­tects the own­er of the jew­el­ry from some­thing, endows it with cer­tain prop­er­ties. Most gem­stones belong to one of the months or signs of the zodi­ac. Dur­ing these peri­ods, they have the strongest and most intense impact on their own­er.

To choose the right cross to buy with a spe­cif­ic seman­tic mes­sage — a wish for a child, for bap­tism, give pref­er­ence to inserts from the fol­low­ing min­er­als:

• emer­ald — means I wish you hap­pi­ness, fideli­ty and uncon­di­tion­al love;

• aqua­ma­rine — I give you courage and bal­ance in life;

• dia­mond / dia­mond (in the bud­get ver­sion — jew­el­ry with zir­cons, cubic zirko­nia or Swarovs­ki crys­tals) — be pure and pure;

• ruby — may you have a lot of ener­gy and love all your life, fol­low your hap­pi­ness;

• sap­phire — I wish you wis­dom and patience, always be your­self;

• opal — I want to pro­tect you so that noth­ing bad hap­pens to you on the path of life;

• topaz — I wish you to find your love and always achieve your goals;

• amethyst — let it help to give calm­ness, pru­dence, main­tain clar­i­ty of mind;

• chryso­lite — will give self-con­fi­dence, hap­pi­ness and good health;

• cit­rine — I wish you vital­i­ty and wealth;

• pearl — may your soul always be pure and inno­cent;

• pome­gran­ate — a wish to find loy­al friends, pas­sion­ate and true love;

• amber — giv­ing courage, con­fi­dence and health.

Who should buy a baptismal cross?

There are no spe­cif­ic require­ments in Ortho­doxy regard­ing who should choose and pur­chase a cross for a child for bap­tism. It can be bought by par­ents, god­par­ents, any inter­est­ed rel­a­tives and fam­i­ly friends. The main thing is to do it with all my heart, soul and with good inten­tions.

In most Ukrain­ian cities and vil­lages, a cross is bought by some­one who is of the same sex with a baby. For a boy, a god­fa­ther is a man; for a girl, a god­moth­er is a woman.

If two god­par­ents are planned, the cross is pre­sent­ed by the god­fa­ther, and the kryzh­ma (bap­tismal tow­el) and shirt are pre­sent­ed by the god­moth­er.

To strength­en the spir­i­tu­al con­nec­tion between the god­fa­ther and the god­son, the boy is pre­sent­ed with an icon with the Guardian Angel (usu­al­ly Nicholas the Won­der­work­er, Archangel Michael), and the girl is giv­en an amulet or medal­lion of the Vir­gin Mary. Some­times girls are giv­en gold or sil­ver ear­rings, bracelets or pen­dants.

Now you know how to choose the right cross for bap­tism. Check out the assort­ment in the cat­a­log of the Sil­vers online store, where you are sure to find suit­able mod­els that will become a per­son­al and sacred dec­o­ra­tion for a child.

Do not delay your deci­sion and do not waste time, because you must not for­get to con­se­crate the cross in the church in order to endow it with blessed prop­er­ties.