In
Eastern Christianity [Orthodox], the most widely used “Christogram” is a
four-letter abbreviation, ΙϹΧϹ — a traditional
abbreviation of the Greek words for "Jesus Christ" (i.e., the first
and last letters of each of the words ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ — written "ΙΗϹΟΥϹ ΧΡΙϹΤΟϹ" with the lunate
sigma [Σ], "Ϲ", common in medieval
Greek).
Those
of you who were in a sorority or fraternity that really studied the Greek
letters would be familiar with this, as I was.
I
= Iota
H
= Theta
Σ
= Sigma
O
= Omicron
Y
= Upsilon
Σ
= Sigma
X
= Chi
P
= Rho
I
= Iota
Σ
= Sigma
T
= Tau
I
became aware many years ago of the “XMAS” actually being a Greek derivation of
Christmas, the “X” being the short abbreviation of “Christos”. It is seen often
in Greek icons as “XC” = Chi Sigma, or “Christos”.
Such
an abbreviation was never meant to offend, in my opinion. It is important to
note that our language developed due to the various Biblical translations—Coelbren
to Aramaic to Greek to Latin and finally, the King’s English [James]. Greek is
our root language which devolved from Coelbren and Aramaic as did the very
ancient Old Welsh.
In
my study of my family history, I had to become very familiar with Old Welsh and
had already been hammered with Greek, due to being a “Frat Rat”.
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