Collection I · Pietas
Four pieces. Each one carries something the Church has carried for two thousand years: a symbol, a name, a promise.
Pietas
pietas, Latin. Dutiful devotion to God, to family, to country.
In ancient Rome, pietas was the first of the virtues. It was not a feeling. It was something you did, again and again, whether or not anyone was watching.
The Church inherited the word and gave it a deeper meaning. Piety became the quiet loyalty of the faithful to God, and to one another. It is the thread that runs through every piece in the Alpha collection.
We began with the things the faithful have always made in order to remember: a monogram cut into catacomb stone, a name shouted against pride, an angel carved above an altar. Each piece takes one of those signs and carries it out of the cathedral and into ordinary life.
The protector
Saint Michael, carved in marble across the back.
Michael is the captain of heaven’s armies, the one who stands between the faithful and the dark. In Revelation he leads the host against the dragon and wins.
Tradition names him defender of the Church, patron of soldiers and police, and the angel who guides souls at the hour of death.
He stands for courage, order and the defence of what is good. To wear him is to stand firm.
£85
By this sign
In hoc signo vinces. By this sign, conquer.
In 312 AD, on the eve of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, the Roman emperor Constantine is said to have seen a cross of light in the sky with the words In hoc signo vinces: by this sign, you will conquer.
He had his soldiers mark their shields with the Chi-Rho, the first two Greek letters of Christ, and won the battle that made him master of Rome.
A year later his Edict of Milan ended the persecution of Christians. A faith once hidden in the catacombs went on to shape the empire, and the centuries that followed.
£85
The battle cry
Who is like God? The question that cast down the dragon.
Quis ut Deus? is the meaning of Michael’s name. In Hebrew, Mi-ka-El: who is like God?
Tradition holds that when Lucifer sought to rise above his Creator, Michael answered with this one question. No one is like God. It was a battle cry and a rebuke in the same breath.
It is pride answered by humility, and it is why the words are carved on his shield. Worn on the back, it is a quiet reminder of whose side you stand on.
£40
First and last
The first and the last, with Christ between.
Long before it was a banner, the Chi-Rho was a monogram. Chi and Rho are the first two letters of Christos in Greek, laid over one another into a single mark. Early Christians cut it into catacomb walls and tombs as a quiet sign of faith.
Around it sit the Alpha and the Omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. In Revelation, Christ says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.” Here the Chi-Rho stands at the front, with the Alpha and Omega on either side.
Across the back, in gold, is Pietas: the old Roman virtue of dutiful devotion to God, family and country. Together they say where you begin, where you end, and what you owe in between.
£40
The Complete Collection
Showing 4 pieces
£85
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£40
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“Beauty can lead us to God, just as surely as prayer.”
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