The culture of tattooing spans millennia, but few of its manifestations possess as deep and tragic a background as body marking during periods of persecution. If today a tattoo is primarily a form of self-expression, for the first followers of Christ in the Roman Empire, it was a vital, albeit extremely risky, way to signify their community affiliation. As the leading Russian-language portal on tattoo symbolism and meaning, we invite you to delve into a little-studied phenomenon: the hidden tattoos of early Christians, which served as silent signs of faith and belonging during the era of persecution.