Exaltation Of The Cross Of The Lord: Secrets Of The Main Shrine Of Christianity

RIA Novosti / Maxim Bogodvid

Anton Skripunov

Today, Orthodox believers celebrate, perhaps, the most unusual of their 12 main holidays - the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord. About why no one can still find the main Christian relic and how this church holiday differs from the rest, - in the RIA Novosti news agency.

Misterious story
In the very history of searching and finding the cross, there are many blank spots. Church tradition is mainly based on the works of such Christian authors as Eusebius of Caesarea, Socrates the Scholastic and Rufin of Aquileia, who lived in the 4th-5th centuries of our era. In the XIII century, these testimonies were combined with folklore legends in the Golden Legend, the most popular book after the Bible in medieval Europe.

One way or another, according to tradition, to search for the main shrine of Christianity, the Roman emperor Constantine the Great organized an entire archaeological expedition. The excavation was led by his mother, Queen Elena. The history of finding a cross that occurred either in 326, or in 335, is full of drama.

According to the ancient Jewish rules, the execution tool should be left in the tomb. But the apostles, according to the legend, laid their Master's cross next to two more crosses (on which robbers were crucified) near the burial place of Christ.

In 130, the Romans erect there the temple of the goddess Venus - the authenticity of this fact was recently confirmed by archaeologists. But by the IV century, when the queen Elena arrived in Jerusalem in search of the cross, the pagan temple was already destroyed.
The expedition found a local resident named Judah, who knew the exact location of the relic. He, according to the "Golden Legend", after "interrogation with passion" was forced to tell everything. As a result, the queen Elena found three crosses. The church tradition says that the Bishop of Jerusalem, Macarius, proposed alternating each of them to a seriously ill woman: from touching the one on which the Lord was crucified, she was healed. According to another version, the crosses were attached to the dead man, who was carried by, and he came to life. In addition to the cross, an archaeological expedition was found by the Holy Sepulcher.

"Upon the completion of this, Basil (Imperor Constantine - Ed.) Immediately made pious orders and, giving an abundant donation, commanded a saving cave to build with royal splendor and wealth a decent prayer house for God," writes the church historian Eusebius of Caesarea. He, by the way, does not mention anything about the acquisition of the cross by Elena. This circumstance forces some scientists to doubt the veracity of this whole story.

© RIA Novosti / Taras Litvinenko

Enklopion folds (bivalves cross) XII-XIII century AD from excavations from the Mangup settlement

Mystical disappearance

The recovered relic was divided into two parts. One was left in Jerusalem, another was sent to Constantinople. But in the VII century, the Persian king Khosrov II captured the Jerusalem fragment. After 14 years, the Byzantines carried out a whole military special operation to bring the shrine back to its original place.

The history of the Jerusalem fragment ends in 1187. The army of the Crusaders took him with them to battle with Saladin's army. The knights were defeated, and the cross mysteriously disappeared. After that, medieval Europe spread legends, the general meaning of which is reduced to one: for the cross a tree was used from the Garden of Eden, so he returned.

"These are exclusively pious stories of a metaphorical character, which rather speak about the meaning of God's suffering, the deed of Christ, rather than the literal sense, although, of course, for the church consciousness they are close and deeply rooted in the ecclesiastical tradition," notes the senior teacher of the theological faculty Orthodox Church of St. Tikhon Archpriest Nikolai Yemelyanov.

The fate of the Constantinople part of the sacred relic is no less vague. According to one version, during the looting of the Byzantine capital in 1204, the Venetians stole it and then resold it. On the other - the shrine was kept in Constantinople until the arrival of the Turks in 1453, and then disappeared. According to the third version - the cross is constantly crushed, so its particles can be found in various parts of Europe.

In Russia, the particles of the Cross of the Lord are kept, including in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Ivanovo. And in 2006 the particle of the Cross was even sent to near-earth orbit.

"They always separated, it's such an ancient tradition - the shrines were always separated and distributed to different temples and monasteries, so the fact that this shrine is so widespread is a common occurrence," Father Nikolay explains.

However, the Church constantly emphasizes that far from all the particles of the Cross are genuine, as trade in fake relics flourished in the Middle Ages. The first figures of Protestantism in the XVI century were sarcastic about this: "If all the particles of the Cross of the Lord are gathered together, then Noah's Ark will be obtained."

Holiday outside the Bible

"The Church regards the cross as an instrument of life, which is the meaning of this holiday," Protopriest Nikolai Emelyanov underlines.


On the day of the Exaltation, believers remember not only the history of finding the Cross of the Lord, but also His suffering. Several dates are dedicated to the crucifixion of Christ in the church calendar: the Feast of the Crossing (August 14), the Week of the Cross in Lent, Good Friday before Easter and, in fact, the Exaltation (September 27). All these days a cross is brought to the center of the temple for worship. However, only the Exaltation entered the list of the twelve - the 12 main - holidays, although it would seem that it was devoted to events not directly related to the Gospel narrative.

"The Orthodox Church, born on the eve of the phenomenon of the Life-giving Cross of the Lord and who became an eyewitness of the great feat of love in the face of the apostles - even before death and death of the cross - accepted ... the sign of the Cross as a saving symbol for believers, and not only as a symbol, but as a saving power , who are defeated by enemies ... The cross continues to live in peace one by salvation, the other to destructive destruction.The struggle of evil and good at the foot of the Cross continues for the sake of love or hatred of Him Who was consecrated to the Tree of the Cross, and Archimandrite John (Krestiankin), an authoritative Orthodox figure of the twentieth century. 

And one more detail: on the feast of the Exaltation of the Life-giving Cross of the Lord, believers, in memory of the sufferings of Jesus Christ, are required to observe fasting - which does not happen in other twelve holidays. 

(RIA Novosti)