“The life of the Orthodox Church provides us with numerous examples of how Almighty God manifests His power through small and lifeless things—especially those things that serve as signs of the Incarnation, life and suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ. Such things include the Cross, icons of the Theotokos and the saints, holy water, oil, myrrh, and so forth…The power of the Cross is mysterious: no matter how unexplainable, it is true and indisputable. Yet St. John Chrysostom speaks of a custom in his time, in which the sign of the Cross is attached “on the emperor’s diadem , on the accoutrements of the soldiers, and it is traced on parts of the body—the head, the breast and the heart— and also on the table of oblation and over beds.… If we need to expel demons, we use the Cross; it also helps to heal the sick.”
Saint Nikolai Velimirovic
~The Prologue of Ohrid