CHRISTMAS or XMAS

By Rev. Fr. Petros Mwale (Mzuzu Diocese – MALAWI)

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INTRODUCTION

“Fr. Petros, is it sacrilegious to write XMAS instead of CHRISTMAS on greeting cards during this festival season?” – Parvin Zulu (Blantyre ArchDiocese – MALAWI)

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RESPONSE

Dear Parvin, to be sacrilegious is to be involved in or committing sacrilege. Sacrilege is the violation or injurious treatment of a sacred object, site or person. The term in question does not apply, listen to this!

ERRONEOUS UNDERSTANDING

Christmas is also known as XMAS. Some people think it’s not correct to call Christmas “Xmas” as that takes the “Christ” out of Christmas. (As Christmas comes from Christ-Mass, the Church service that celebrated the birth of Jesus). But that is not quiet right!

RIGHT UNDERSTANDING

In the Greek language and alphabet, the letter that looks like an X is the Greek letter CHI (Χ), pronounced “Kyle” which is the first letter of the Greek word for Christ, Christos.

The early church used the first two letters of Christos in the Greek alphabet ‘chi’ and ‘rho’ to create a monogram (symbol) to represent the name of Jesus. This looks like an X with a small p on the top: ☧

The symbol of a fish is sometimes used by Christians (you might see a fish sticker on a car or someone wearing a little fish badge, OR on the Chasuble or stole). This comes from the time when the first Christians had to meet in secret, as the Romans wanted to kill them (before Emperor Constantine became a Christian around 313 AD). Jesus had said that he wanted to make his followers ‘Fishers of Men’, so people started to use that symbol.

When two Christians met, one person drew half a basic fish shape (often using their foot in the dust on the ground) and the other person drew the other half of the fish. The Greek word for fish is “IKTHUS” or ‘Ichthys’. There are five Greek letters in the word. It can also make up a sentence of Christian beliefs “Ie-sous Christos Theou Huios So-te-r” which in English means “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour”. The second letter of these five letter is X or Christos!

CONCLUSION

So XMAS can also mean CHRISTMAS; but it should also be pronounced “Christmas” rather than “ex-mas.”

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Receive my Priestly Blessings from St. Cecilia Catholic Parish (Mzuzu Diocese – Mpherembe)

Rev. Fr. Petros Mwale – Feedback: +265884150185 (WhatsApp only)

SOURCES

Griffiths, Emma. “Why get cross about Xmas?”New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2004.

Tucker, Karen B. Westerfield. “Christmas”. In Hastings, Adrian; Mason, Alistair; Pyper, Hugh (eds.). The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought. London: Oxford University Press, 2000.