Philip Cross

Flag of Iceland with heraldic right-lying Philippus cross

Wittibreut coat of arms with the Philippus cross as a tau cross

The Philippus Cross , French Croix de Saint-Philippe, is named after the apostle Philip . It is a rarely used coat of arms figure in heraldry and is represented in two different forms.

presentation

A Latin cross lying horizontally is usually shown . This must be mentioned in the description of the coat of arms on the right or left depending on the position in the coat of arms shield or field .

The flags of all Scandinavian countries contain a Philippus cross on the heraldic right. Because of the difficulty of expressly differentiating between the left and right lying in the blazon and because of the linguistic brevity required in the blazon, the term right-lying Philippus cross is rarely used here; instead the term Scandinavian cross is used .

A second version of a cross called the Philippuskreuz is the Tau cross. An example of this is the coat of arms of the municipality of Wittibreut , whose coat of arms description is a depicted T-cross called the Philippus cross to refer to one of the parish patrons of the local church.

Apostle Philip with open book and Latin cross in a stained glass window in Saint Aidan's Cathedral in Enniscorthy

history

The lying Philip's cross is not, as one might assume, an attribute of the apostle and martyr Philip . In iconography, this is mainly represented by an upright Latin cross with a long arm and a book as a distinguishing mark. The lying Philippus cross could have arisen from the common symbolic representation of these two identification marks, with a Latin cross lying diagonally over a lying (possibly open) book to refer to the apostle.

Wirmer flag

Josef Wirmer (1901–1944) proposed the Philippus Cross in black, gold and red as the future national flag of Germany after the planned overthrow of Hitler through the assassination attempt of July 20, 1944 . During the EM 2012 , the Islamophobic blog Politically Incorrect recommended the flag as a “cult” alternative to the German flag; the author saw the Wirmer flag as a symbol "for the self-determination of the Germans". In 2015 the flag variant appeared at Pegida demonstrations.

literature

• Rudolf Huber, Renate Rieth (Red.): Ecclesiastical utensils, crosses and reliquaries of the Christian churches. = Objets liturgiques, croix et reliquaires des eglises chretiennes. = Church implements, crosses and reliquaries of the Christian churches (= Glossarium artis. = Dictionary of Art. Vol. 2). 3rd, completely revised and enlarged edition. Saur, Munich et al. 1992, ISBN 3-598-11079-0 , p. 142, image 176.

Web links

• Philippus Cross in the Heraldry Wiki

Individual evidence

1. ^ Community Wittibreut, entry on the coat of arms of Philippuskreuz  in the database of the House of Bavarian History
2. ↑ Service: What kind of flag with a cross is that at Pegida and Co.? - Network against Nazis of January 12, 2015; "Picked up" by Sven Felix Kellerhoff in the world on January 20, 2015 and by SpOn on July 29, 2015