My childhood being spent in a christian culture that saw the cross or crucifix as a generic symbol, I had never considered it, but the culture of the Catholic church seems to have extremely detailed rules for most things, and I assume that includes crosses and crucifixs (crusifixi?) Does anyone know what these rules concerning crosses are for lay Catholics and for members of the clergy?
I’ve never heard or read any specifications for a crucifix (note the spelling. Plural is “crucifixes”), and have seen all sorts of variations, some of them quite far from the norm. Please note that a “crucifix” is a cross that bears the figure of the crucified Jesus on it. A cross is simply the cross itself.
I don’t know of any special rules about using them, or about their construction. Nobody specifies length of arms, angles of the arms (I’ve seen them where they are not perpendicular to the msain body, and where they don’t form a continuous bar), or even if the can or don’t have extra bars.
The usual inscruiption “INRI” is an abbreviation for Iesu Nazoreorun Rex Iudeorum, and derives from the synoptic gospels, which say that Pilate had this written over Christ. I’ve seen crucifixes where that’s written out in full, and ones where there’s no inscription at all.
I’m would think at the very least for crosses and crusifixes used for ceremonial religious Catholicism must have SOME specifications, wouldn’t a Greek Orthodox cross be an unacceptable symbol in a catholic church?
Why?
as I’ve said – I’ve seen Catholic crucifixes with extra bars on them. The three-bar crucifix with lowest bar not at right angles is a typically Orthodox form (and therefore unlikely to be used in a Catholic Church), but i’ve seen mu;ltiple-barred Catholic crucifixes and ones with non-perpenicular arms.
They’re not common, I’ll grant you, and 99% will not have them. but I don’t know of anything forbidding them or encouraging the status quo.
You might be interested to learn of the Eastern Catholic sects. They’re a group who recognize the Pope as the leader of the Church and are in full communion with the Roman Catholic church, but who get most of their traditions and some minor points of theology from the Orthodox. I would not be at all surprised to see a cross in the same style as typically used in Orthodox churches in an Eastern Catholic church.
Why would it not be crucifices?
I’m not sure that “crucifix” is even itself a Latin word, despite its Latin roots. But even if it is, it’d be a third declension word, and those don’t really have any absolute rules on how to convert the nominative singular to the other forms. While, yes, many third declension words will convert an x in the nominative to a c in the other cases, that’s not universal.
I would believe that the Catholic church would not have any rules regarding “ornamentation” simply due to their belief that they are not a kingdom of earth and do not overemphasize the bible. There are no rules for exactly what the communion bread and wine actually are, for instance.
It is actually fascinating to look at crucifi from around the world to observe the local touches in skin coloring, emphasis on different wounds, and amount of agony depicted. Kevin Smith’s Dogma wasn’t too far off with Buddy Jesus for Americans when compared to some of the Central and South American churches.
Ex-Catholic who went to a Catholic university with a requirement for at least 1 religion class / semester. There are no requirements. Any crucifix that is not actually offensive in some way is usable for any purpose one is used for. There are traditional styles that are used for various purposes, but that’s just tradition with no actual canon law behind it. The traditional ones are just commonly used because to use some other would seem odd to the people using it. No other reason.
Different crosses may have specific meanings, but they come in all shapes. For example:
- the Cross of St. Andrew is X-shaped (according to tradition, that’s the shape of the cross on which he was martyred),
- the Cross of Santiago (from a military order) is sort of dagger-shaped, with curlicues; Montesa’s (a different military order) is also curlicued but it’s symmetrical;
- the Cross of Caravaca has an extra bar at the bottom and two little angels, one on each side,
- followers of Francis Assisi often wear a Tau (a T); again, tradition says so did the Saint…
We’re fond of tradition 
And then there’s the Cross of St. Peter, which is an inverted/upside-down cross, after the tradition that St. Peter was crucified upside down. Upside-down crosses are okay in the Catholic tradition. Upside-down crucifixes, though, are seen as very disrespectful.
Actually since that is the fundamental sacrament of the church, there are certain specifications for the RCC forms of communion: the communion wafer must be azime (unleavened) bread and the wine must be fermented grape product. There are *accepted variations *within the parameters, so the host can be low-gluten (but NOT gluten-free), and the wine can be mustum, the fresh product that has just started fermentation so its alcohol content is minimal. But you should not substitute, say, kaiser rolls and Welch’s grape juice.
And according to Catholic theology, after the consecration, what the bread and wine actually are is the Body and Blood of Jesus. They’re just flesh and blood which happen to retain all of the detectable properties of bread and wine.
Apologies, and this is what happens when I post while barely awake: in the Cross of Caravaca, the extra bar is at the top.
I was at a wedding this weekend, and the crucifix in the church was the most horrible piece of shit I’ve ever seen. Everyone around me was commenting on how weird it was. It appeared to be wood, metal and fiberglass. The cross portion consisted of the crossbar - there was no intact upright portion of the cross, except for about a 3 foot (proportional) section attached to Christ’s feet, and it was at an angle. Christ’s side was exposed - and by “exposed” I mean “the damage from the spear was much more than a puncture - it had ripped a large portion of flesh off, exposing his ribs”.
I wish I had taken a picture to post - I can’t find anything online.