22 Religion and Society in Central and Eastern Europe of which draw attention to the meanings that actors themselves attach to symbols and the behaviours associated with them Specifically, in this paper, I apply the theoretical approach to symbols of cultural anthropologist Victor Turner (1968, 1970, 1974, 2004) Turner defined a symbol as the smallest unit of ritual that retains the specific characteristics of ritual behaviour: it is a part of a specific structure in the context of ritual (Turner 1970, 19) A symbol does not have to be a material object Geometric shapes, colours, animals, body organs or body parts, gestures, events, spatial units, relationships, and activities are among the myriad objects that can become symbols Turner considered symbols to be the basic building blocks, or ‘molecules’, of rituals (Turner 2004, 26) Turner distinguished between dominant and instrumental symbols Symbols produce actions, and dominant symbols tend to become the focus of interaction Groups mobilise around dominant symbols, worship them, perform other symbolic activities in their vicinity, and add other symbolic objects to them, often with the aim of creating complex ritual places Dominant symbols refer to values that are considered axiomatic of a given society (Turner 1970, 20–22) In the present paper, I focus on the symbolism of the cross and the church in their various forms Based on the data gathered during ethnographic research, I will illustrate that the church as a building in a concrete locality in an Eastern Slovak village and various forms of the cross can be interpreted as dominant symbols in Turner’s theory Building on the analysis of ethnographic data, I will demonstrate strengths and weaknesses of Turner’s theory of symbols During the analysis, I will suggest possible answers, stemming mainly from cognitive anthropology, for certain questions regarding theory and methodology left unanswered by Turner In the first part of the paper, I present the theory of symbols developed by Victor Turner In the next chapter, I describe the research site as well as the research methods and techniques I used In the subsequent two chapters, I present the results of the data analysis and put these results in the context of Turner’s theory and as broadened by cognitive anthropology Theoretical perspective Symbolic anthropology developed as a theoretical perspective in the 1960s and 1970s Its quintessential characteristic is the research of culture as a system of shared symbols and meanings (Kanovský 2004; Soukup 2011) According to one of its founding fathers, American cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz, symbols are external sources of information that allow a person to understand, make sense of and organise the physical and social world (Bell 1997; Eller 2007; Geertz 1977; Soukup 2011) For Turner, just as for Geertz, symbols express shared meanings The emphasis for Turner was also on behaviours affected by symbols However, Turner, unlike Geertz, argued that the shared meanings of symbols additionally enhanced group solidarity (Collings 2006, 157-158; Little 2006, 170) Turner’s theory of dominant and instrumental symbols provides an analytical tool for the analysis of religious symbols Turner stated that the structure and properties of ritual symbols can be derived from three types of data: External form and observable characteristics Interpretations of experts and lay people A meaningful context created by an anthropologist (Turner 1970, 20) © RASCEE, www.rascee.net 2020, 12 (1)