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BY THE CONVERSATION
By Gustavo Morello of Boston College
Holy Week and Easter are perhaps the most important days in the Christian calendar. Many associate those celebrations with church services, processions, candles, incense, fasting and penances.
However, there is another tradition that many Christians follow – that of tattooing. Historically, Easter was an important time for tattoos among some Christian groups. Today, Christian tattooing happens in many parts of the world and all year around. Some Christians visiting Jerusalem around Easter will get a tattoo of a cross, or a lamb, usually on their forearms.
As a sociologist of religion and a Jesuit Catholic priest, I have long studied tattoos as religious practices. I have interviewed tattoo artists in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Loreto in Italy who have been continuing and recreating the tradition of Christian tattooing. Evidence is clear the practice started shortly after Jesus’ crucifixion and spread across Europe in later centuries.
The first Christian tattoos
The Romans, like the Greeks, tattooed slaves and prisoners, usually with letters or words on their foreheads that indicated their crime. Soon after Jesus’ death, around the year 30 C.E., they started enslaving and tattooing Christians with the marks “AM” – meaning “ad metalla,” or condemned to work in the mines, a punishment that often resulted in death.
Almost at the same time, Christians who were not enslaved got tattoos of the early Christian signs such as fish or lambs in solidarity and to show that they identified with Jesus.
There were no specific words in Latin or Greek for tattooing, so the words “stizo,” “signum” and “stigma” were used. The word stigma also referred to the marks of nails on Jesus’ hands and foot, as a result of his crucifixion. Christians often got their own “stigmas”: a sign – usually a cross – in Jerusalem to honor Christ’s martyrdom.
The beginning of a tradition
There are several documented accounts of the tradition.
One from the third century mentions Christians in present-day Egypt and Syria getting tattoos of fish and crosses.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/theconversation/2024/03/tattooing-dates-back-to-the-crucifixion/