Editing Labarum (section)

{{Short description|Roman military standard displaying XP for Christ}}
{{about|the vexillum|the ''ΧΡ'' symbol, <big>[[☧]]</big>|Chi Rho}}
[[File:Labarum of Constantine the Great.svg|thumb|The Labarum of Constantine I, reconstructed from the depiction on a [[follis]] minted {{Circa|337}}. The three dots represent "medallions" which are said to have shown portraits of Constantine and his sons.<ref>A. Macgeorge, ''Flags'', Glasgow (1881): The labarum of the emperors [...] frequently bore upon it a representation of the emperor, sometimes by himself and sometimes accompanied by the heads of members of his family."</ref>]]
The '''labarum''' ({{langx|el|λάβαρον}} or λάβουρον<ref name="Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities">[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0062%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DL%3Aentry+group%3D1%3Aentry%3Dlabarum-harpers Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898), Labarum]</ref>) was a ''[[vexillum]]'' (military standard) that displayed the "[[Chi-Rho]]" symbol <big>[[☧]]</big>, a [[christogram]] formed from the first two [[Greek alphabet|Greek letters]] of the word "[[Christ]]" ({{langx|el|ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ}}, or Χριστός) – ''[[Chi (letter)|Chi]]'' (χ) and ''[[Rho (letter)|Rho]]'' (ρ).<ref>In [[Unicode]], the Chi-Rho symbol is encoded at U+2627 (☧), and for [[Coptic alphabet|Coptic]] at U+2CE9 (⳩).</ref> It was first used by the [[Roman Emperors|Roman emperor]] [[Constantine I (emperor)|Constantine the Great]].<ref name=EB1911>{{cite EB1911 |wstitle=Labarum |volume=16 |page=2}}</ref>

Ancient sources draw an unambiguous distinction between the two terms "labarum" and "Chi-Rho", even though later usage sometimes regards the two as synonyms. The name labarum was applied both to the original standard used by Constantine the Great and to the many standards produced in imitation of it in the [[Late Antiquity|Late Antique]] world, and subsequently.