Such a cross is used during services and church sacraments: confession, communion, baptism, and wedding. It is also used to consecrate water, including consecration during the baptism ceremony, hence the cross is normally made of metal.

The article was decorated with filigree patterns and ornaments. Filigree techniques came to be used in Ancient Russia in the 10th-11th centuries. Craftsmen would twine silver or gold wires into subtle filigree patters. There were dozens of methods to make filigree ornaments. Metal threads could be twisted upon a special metal, to which silver of gold didn’t stick, or upon paper with a prepared drawing. The oldest existing filigree articles include Monomakh’s Cap and the gold medallions of the Ryazan yoke necklets, now both in the Armoury Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin. 

Filigree can be three-dimensional or flat. The makers of the cross in question used the simpler one, flat. Also, in some areas they applied the filigree to a metal background. The even margins of the cross were guilloched, i. e. a mesh of fine intersecting lines was engraved.

The museum collection acquired the cross after the Revolution. It was brought from the church in the village of Glebovo, a few kilometres away from Rybinsk. The museum collection acquired the cross after the Revolution. It was brought from the church in the village of Glebovo, a few kilometres away from Rybinsk.