Reply #28: As far as I know, we've had that icon for a long, long time.

[knitter4democracy]

Every Orthodox church has an icon of Jesus in the tomb and Jesus crucified on the cross. They're used in Easter rites. The icon of Christ buried is put inside the epitaphion, a wooden structure meant to represent the tomb, and then carried around the church in a procession while we all sing funeral hymns on Holy Friday. The icon of the crucified Christ is in two parts, and they take Him off the cross on Easter Sunday and keep Him off until Pentecost, if I remember right.

Martyred saints hold a cross in their hand in their icons, and that's been a tradition for over a thousand years. After someone's been baptized and chrismated, they're given a cross necklace to wear, and I've seen old cross necklaces in Russia in museums from when they converted in 988, so it was an established ritual by then, since Greek missionaries were the ones who came up to Russia and taught them the faith and started churches and translated everything. We've also been making the sign of the cross on ourselves, from what I was told, since the very early days.