The Persian Cross is built from two signs: the cross, the symbol of the Christian faith, and the lotus, one of Iran's ancient symbols. The lotus sits at the centre of the cross because the design sets out to express the Christian faith in an Iranian visual language.
- The cross
- Death and resurrection
- Four equal arms
- Three points: the Trinity
- Where the arms meet
- The gold frame
- The lotus
- Light
- New life
- Purity
- Twelve petals
- Geometry
- Colours
- A new design in Iran's tradition
The cross
The cross is the sign of the Christian faith. The design of the Persian Cross has a few clear features: four equal arms, arms that each end in three points, a centre where the arms meet, and a gold frame drawn around the whole design. Each of these features carries a meaning.
A sign of death and resurrection
In Roman times the cross was an instrument of execution, the most painful and humiliating death a condemned person could face. Our Lord Jesus Christ died on a cross and rose from the dead on the third day. From then on the cross became, for those who follow him, a sign of freedom and life, and a sign that had once meant shame became a sign of hope.
The apostle Paul describes this reversal in his letter to the Christians of Corinth. To those who reject it, the message of the cross seems like nonsense; to those who are being saved, it is the power of God.
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
Four equal arms
All four arms of the Persian Cross are identical, and none is longer than another. The cross favours no direction over any other and takes in east, west, north and south alike.
Our Lord Jesus Christ said that people would come from all four corners of the world and take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. The way to that feast is open to every people and every land. The four equal arms are a picture of that invitation to all.
People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God.
Three points: the Trinity
Each arm is narrow near the centre and widens towards its edge. Crosses of this shape appear in Christian art from at least the seventh century, and in Europe they came to be called the cross pattée. In the Persian Cross each arm ends in three points: a corner on either side and a point in the middle.
These three points stand for the Trinity: the one God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The three points are joined along a single edge and together form one arm, as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God. On Armenian khachkars, the carved cross-stones of Armenia, each arm likewise ends in three loops, which some read as a sign of the Trinity.
After his resurrection our Lord Jesus Christ sent his disciples to baptise people of every nation in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In the Persian Cross those three names are repeated at the end of all four arms, facing all four directions of the world.
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
Where the arms meet
All four arms meet at a single point, and the lotus sits exactly there. The lotus section below explains that its centre stands for our Lord Jesus Christ. Here the centre gains a further meaning: the place where the arms of the cross meet is a place of reconciliation.
The apostle Paul writes that through Christ God reconciled all things to himself, making peace through the blood shed on the cross. The cross is where the distance between God and people comes to an end.
and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
The gold frame
In the Bible gold is a sign of something precious, and it passes through fire to be refined. The apostle Peter compares a faith that has come through hardship and held firm to gold tested and purified in the furnace.
The gold frame runs around the whole design and stays the same in all four official versions. The colour of the field changes while the gold stays in place, like a faith that holds firm through the changes of life.
These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
The lotus at the heart of the cross
The lotus is one of Iran's ancient symbols, carved again and again into the reliefs and monuments of the land, from Persepolis and Pasargadae in the Achaemenid Empire to the silver vessels of the Sasanian Empire. That is why the Persian Cross sets it at the heart of the cross: an Iranian sign that carries the message of Christ.
The way the lotus lives in nature has a few clear features. Its roots lie in the mud at the bottom of a pond, its stem rises through the water, and its flower opens on the surface. It opens towards the sun every morning and closes again in the evening. Each of these features carries a meaning in the Persian Cross.
Light
The lotus is a flower that lives by the light. As the sun comes up it opens its petals one by one and turns them to the sky, and when the day ends it closes again. Its opening depends on the light; without it, the flower stays shut.
In the Christian faith, light stands for the presence of God and his truth, and darkness for being far from him. Our Lord Jesus Christ called himself the light of the world and promised that whoever follows him will not lose their way in the dark. The lotus that opens towards the light at the heart of the Persian Cross is a picture of a person who turns to Christ and flourishes in his light.
"I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
New life
The lotus flower forms under the water, rises through the surface and opens in the daylight. That passage from water into light is a clear picture of a life beginning again.
In the Christian faith, baptism is the rite by which a person declares their faith in Christ openly. The one being baptised goes down into the water and comes up out of it. The apostle Paul compares going down into the water to being buried with Christ, and coming up out of it to rising with him: the old life, bound by sin, is left behind, and a new life begins that flows from Christ's resurrection. A lotus rising from the water and opening in the light recalls that same passage.
We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
Purity
The roots of the lotus lie in the mud at the bottom of the pond, a dark place where the water is still and murky. Even so, the flower that grows from those roots comes out of the water clean and bright, and carries none of the dirt around it.
This is the life faith calls people to. A follower of Christ does not withdraw from the world; they live among other people and in the difficulties of their own time. They are called to stay pure in that same world, to act with integrity and to be a source of light to those around them. The apostle Paul compares such a life to stars shining in the night sky.
so that you may become blameless and pure, "children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation." Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky
Twelve petals and a centre
The lotus of the Persian Cross has twelve petals. The number recalls the twelve disciples our Lord Jesus Christ chose from among his followers to be with him and then to carry his message to others. These twelve, called the apostles, were the first to take the good news of the gospel out of Jerusalem and into other lands.
All twelve petals are set around a single centre and are joined to it. That centre stands for our Lord Jesus Christ himself, the one the disciples gathered around and from whom their faith came. Its place in the design carries meaning too: it sits exactly where the four arms of the cross meet.
He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach
The geometry
The four arms are identical. One arm was drawn and the other three were produced from it by exact 90° rotations, so there is no difference between them at all. Each arm is narrow near the centre, widens towards its end and finishes in a point at the middle. The corners of each arm end are close to right angles, and the central point has an angle of about 106°.
The petals sit exactly 30° apart, and because 12 divides by 4, one petal lines up with each arm of the cross. With 10 or 14 petals that alignment is impossible and the flower would look twisted against the arms.
The gold frame is built from five layers: a dark outer line, a thin highlight, a broad gold band, a bronze shadow and a dark inner line. The same build repeats around the arms, the medallion, the petals and the central ring, and the petal frames merge in the gap between each pair of petals. In the colour studio all five layers are generated from whatever colour you choose for the frame, so the shape never changes, whatever the colours.
Colours
The original is navy and gold, with blue-green petals. The other three official versions, green, burgundy and stone, keep the gold frame and change the field. If you need a colour outside these four, the colour studio builds the design in one, two or several colours and exports it in the format and size you choose.
A new design in keeping with Iran's ancient culture
The Persian Cross is a new design and claims no history for this particular form. The history belongs to its parts: the cross, the sign of the Christian faith, and the lotus, carved into the reliefs and monuments of Iran since the Achaemenid Empire. The design draws on the visual language of Iran's ancient culture to express the message of Christ.
Being new is no reason to set a symbol aside. Every symbol that looks ancient today was drawn for the first time once. According to Lactantius, before the battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 Constantine ordered a heavenly sign to be marked on his soldiers' shields, and the Chi-Rho (☧) that spread from that time is now among the most widely recognised Christian symbols.
Age comes from continued use. The Persian Cross begins today, and its worth will be settled by the truth of what it says and by the people who use it.
Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.