You are writing to me saying that the custom of making the sign of the Cross ceased to exist. For instance, when the train departs you wish to make the sign of the Cross but you are afraid of being mocked. The solution comes from our Saviour’s words: ‘If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels’ (Mark 8:38).

This alone should be enough to make us follow without fear the religious rules, but there are, however, many other Christian instructions that show us we are not to follow the world and its customs: God says that we cannot serve two lords, God and the world, and Apostle Jacob shows that the one who wants to be the friend of the world, is the enemy of God. We cannot serve the world, i.e. the worldly customs that do not fit into Christianity. Sadly, now, ‘for the society, the custom’ of making the sing of the Cross ceased to exist. When it is about the saving seal of the Cross and the name of Christ.

(Translated from Școala ortodoxiei pentru începători, Editura Sofia, Bucureşti, p. 143-144)