Petrus Cross

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A Latin cross standing on its head is called a Petrus cross .

Petrus Cross
Depiction of the Crucifixion of Peter from the 15th century, detail from a fresco by Filippino Lippi

Christian background

After Christian tradition who asked Apostle Peter when he during his missionary activity in Rome was arrested and crucified should be asked to be crucified upside down. He said that he was not worthy to die in the same way as Christ .

Catholic churches that are consecrated to St. Peter wear or carried a St. Peter's cross on the tower instead of the Latin cross. In art, too, the inverted cross appears, also together with the motif of the key , as a symbol of the apostle Peter.

Modern interpretation

In modern times, the inverted cross, detached from Christian tradition, is often interpreted as a reversal of Christian values ​​or as a mockery or rejection of the churches as organizations or Christianity itself, for example in the context of modern occultism , especially in Satanism . In the Black Metal scene, for example, the cross, similar to the Drudenfuß, is also used in this sense. In addition, in parts of the black scene , the cross is often used as a provocation and not necessarily as a sign of Satanism.

Georg Baselitz deliberately violated the rules of Christian iconography with his inverted image of the crucifixion, which he left to the Evangelical Church in Luttrum . A long-running dispute broke out over this in the 1990s.

Characters

⸸

In Unicode , the additional punctuation block contains a character as U + 2E38 turned dagger , the glyph of which, shown in the code tables, corresponds to the Petrus Cross in the Times New Roman font .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Marietheres Döhler: Acta Petri: Text, translation and commentary on the Actus Vercellenses . Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-11-049464-8 , pp. 137 .
  2. ↑ Evangelos Koukidis: Inverted Cross or Petrus Cross in Signs of the Devil, Alles zum Teufel, FU Berlin, Department of Philosophy and Humanities, accessed on September 25, 2019.
  3. ^ Roman Rutkowski: The charisma of the grave. Stereotype and prejudices in relation to youthful subcultures using the example of the black scene. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2004, ISBN 3-8334-1351-4 , p. 127.
  4. ↑ Manfred Stock, Philipp Mühlberg: The scene from within. Skinheads, Goths, Heavy Metals, Punks. LinksDruck-Verlag, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-86153-007-4 , p. 61.
  5. ↑ Code Tables - Supplemental Punctuation. (PDF; 92 kB) Unicode Consortium, accessed on September 25, 2019 .