# St. Zacharias cross

*The Saint Zacharias Blessing*

**Known today as.** A cross bearing a string of capital letters and small crosses, each standing for a Latin invocation against the plague; the crosses stand for those that begin “Crux.”

Kind: Amulet

## What was it used for?

Printed on sheets and medals and hung on house doors or worn in plague years, especially in Central Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

## What does modern science say?

Examples survive in collections such as the Wellcome’s.

## What lore surrounds it?

Clerics of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries spread the legend that St. Zacharias, a bishop of Jerusalem, had gathered the prayers, which were kept in a Spanish monastery and recommended at the Council of Trent in 1546.

## Sources

- Skemer, D. C. (2016). Deciphering a Central European plague amulet. Wellcome Library blog; republished by Brewminate.

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*St. Zacharias cross.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-03. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/st-zacharias-cross

Historical description, not medical advice.