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The Exaltation of the Precious and Life-giving Cross 9/27/2013
On this day are celebrated two events related to the Venerable Cross: firstly, the finding of the Venerable Cross on Golgotha, and secondly the returning of the Venerable Cross from Persia to Jerusalem. Travelling all over the Holy Land, Empress Helen decided to search for the Venerable Cross of Christ. An elderly Hebrew by the name of Jude was the only one to know the place where the Cross was, and having been compelled by the Empress, he told her that the Cross was buried under the temple of Venus that was built on Golgotha by the Emperor Hadrian. The Empress ordered this pagan temple to be destroyed and digging deep they found three crosses. While the Empress could not see no way of telling which was the Cross of Christ there was a funeral procession passing by. Then the Patriarch Macarius told them to lay down the crosses on the dead man. And when the third cross was laid down on him, the dead man came alive. This was the sign according to which they identified the true Cross of Christ, Venerable and Life-giving. Then they laid it down on a sick woman who was instantly healed. Then the Patriarch raised the Cross on high so that all could see it, while the crowd exclaimed in tears:" Lord have mercy!" The Empress Helen made a silver casket in which she laid the Cross. Later, when the Persian Emperor Khozroes took over Jerusalem, many were taken into captivity and the Cross of God was taken to Persia. The Cross remained in Persia for fourteen years. In 628 the Greek Emperor Herakles defeated Khozroes and gloriously returned the Cross to Jerusalem. Upon entering into the town, Emperor Herakles bore the cross on his back. Yet, suddenly he stopped and was not able to proceed a step further. Patriarch Zacharias saw an angel that prevented the Emperor in rich clothes to walk under the Cross, on the road that God had walked barefoot and humiliated. This vision the Patriarch revealed to the Emperor. Then the Emperor removed his crown, and barefoot and in poor clothes took up the Cross to Golgotha and laid it down in the Church of the Resurrection, for joy and consolation of the whole Christian world.
