Agreed. The crosses are upside down because the church is, This is the natural position since the steeple shape follows the scabbard. I reject terms like "satanist" because they are very loaded and inaccurate. Satanism is a modern phenomenon, like the Church of Satan or the Temple of Set. Frankly i find it hard to take these guys too seriously.
In the old days anything non-Christian was considered to be of satan, but i think you would be hard pressed to find any actual satanic cults that were organized to the level that they would create such a work as this dagger for their uses. I have quite a bit of experience with old pagan symbols, but would not consider them to be "satanic" in nature...even the ones that feature horned gods and inverted pentagrams. This does appear to be a ritual dagger of some sort and i would image it might be late 19th to early 20th century.
The term athame really doesn'y come into any serious usage until the neo-pagan wicca movement of the 1950s, thougfh many have attempted to present some sort of old etymology. As for tormented figures, you can find such things in many old churches along with images of the green man and othet pagan signs. The church used to love to show torment to scare it's paritioners into being good. Go figure...
