A Christogram is a monogram or combination of letters which forms an abbreviation for the name of Jesus Christ, and is traditionally used as a Christian symbol.

In Eastern Orthodoxy, it is a four-letter abbreviation ICXC - a traditional abbreviation of the Greek words for "Jesus Christ" (i.e., the first and last letters of each of the words "ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ -- written "IHCOYC XPICTOC" with the lunate sigma common in medieval Greek). On Western Orthodox icons this christogram may be split: "IC" on the left of the image and "XC" on the right, often with titlos.

"ICXC" may also be seen inscribed on the Ichthys.

In the Latin-speaking Christianity of medieval Western Europe (and so among Catholics and many Protestants today), the most common Christogram is "IHS" or "IHC", derived from the first three letters of the Greek name of Jesus, iota-eta-sigma-omicron-upsilon-sigma or ΙΗΣΟΥΣ. Here the Greek letter eta was interpreted as the letter H in the Latin-speaking West (Greek eta and Latin-alphabet H had the same visual appearance and shared a common historical origin), while the Greek letter sigma was either interpreted as the Latin letter C (due to the visually-similar form of the "lunate sigma"), or was interpreted as Latin S (since these letters of the two alphabets wrote the same sound). Because the

IHS is sometimes mistakenly interpreted as meaning Iesus Hominum Salvator ("Jesus, Savior of men", in Latin), or connected with In Hoc Signo. Even more dubious are interpretations, based on the English language, as an abbreviation of "I Have Suffered" or "In His Service". This is also the likely source of the joke that Jesus' full name is "Jesus H. Christ."

One of the oldest Christograms is the Chi-Rho or Labarum. It consists of the superimposed Greek letters Chi Χ and Rho Ρ, the first two letters of chi-rho-iota-sigma-tau-omicron-sigma ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ. Technically, the word labarum is Latin for a standard with a little flag hanging on it, used in the army. A christogram was added to the flag as an image of the Greek letters Chi Rho, in the late Roman period. So Christogram and labarum are not originally synonyms.

The most commonly encountered Christogram in English-speaking countries in modern times is the X (or more accurately, Greek letter Chi) in the abbreviation Xmas (for "Christmas"), which represents the first letter of the word Christ.

See also: Christian symbolism, Labarum, Names and titles of Jesus, Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus, , Jesus H. Christ

Crismón IHS IHS IHS IHS