Воздвижение Креста Господня. On September 27, the Orthodox Church celebrates one of its Twelve Great Feasts: the Exaltation (Vozdvizhenie) of the Holy and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord. This feast commemorates two pivotal events in Church history: the discovery of the True Cross in Jerusalem in the year 326 by St. Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine the Great, and its triumphant return to Jerusalem in 630 after Emperor Heraclius recovered it from Persian captivity.
The finding of the Cross
After the Emperor Constantine ended the persecution of Christians, his mother, the Empress Helena, traveled to the Holy Land to find the places of the Lord’s life and Passion. By that time Golgotha had been buried under a pagan temple, built two centuries earlier to erase the memory of the Crucifixion. St. Helena ordered the temple torn down and the ground dug out, and there, according to Church tradition, three crosses were found together with the board bearing the inscription “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”
To learn which of the three was the Cross of Christ, Patriarch Macarius of Jerusalem had each one brought in turn to a woman who was gravely ill. When the third cross touched her, she was healed. The same Cross was then laid on a dead man being carried to burial, and he rose. From this miracle the Cross received the name by which the Church still calls it: Life-Giving.
When the Cross was uncovered near Golgotha, Patriarch Macarius lifted it up before the assembled crowds so that all could see and venerate it, while the people cried out again and again, “Lord, have mercy.” It is from this act that the feast takes its name, the Raising or Exaltation of the Cross. On the site of the discovery St. Helena and Constantine built the Church of the Resurrection, known today as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and its consecration in 335 was joined to the feast of the Cross the following day.
The return from Persia
Three centuries later, in 614, the Persian army captured Jerusalem and carried the Cross away as a trophy. It remained in Persia for fourteen years, until Emperor Heraclius defeated the Persians and brought the Cross back. Tradition tells that the Emperor wished to carry the Cross into Jerusalem himself, in full imperial dress, but found he could not move forward through the city gate. Only when he took off his crown and purple robe and walked barefoot, as Christ had walked to Golgotha, was he able to carry the Cross to the church. This second raising of the Cross in 630 is remembered on the same feast day.
How the feast is celebrated
Though it ranks among the great feasts, the Exaltation is also observed as a strict fasting day, calling the faithful to reflect on the suffering and sacrifice of Christ rather than to feast. On the eve of the feast, at the All-Night Vigil, the Cross is carried in solemn procession from the altar and placed on a stand in the center of the church, decorated with flowers and greenery. In cathedrals the bishop raises the Cross high and slowly lowers it toward the ground and up again, facing each direction of the world in turn, while the choir sings “Lord, have mercy” a hundred times, recalling the first Exaltation in Jerusalem.
The Cross remains in the center of the church for a week, and all who come venerate it with three prostrations, singing: “We venerate Your Cross, O Master, and we glorify Your holy Resurrection.” The troparion of the feast is one of the best known hymns of the Church year: “O Lord, save Your people and bless Your inheritance; grant victory to the Orthodox Christians over their adversaries, and by Your Cross preserve Your habitation.”
The meaning of the Cross for us
The Church does not raise the Cross in mourning. The feast places the instrument of a shameful execution in the center of the church, lifted up and crowned with flowers, because through it death itself was overcome. As the Paschal hymn says, “By the Cross, joy has come into all the world.” The Cross is the sign of Christ’s victory, and every Orthodox Christian carries it: on the chest from the day of baptism, in the sign of the cross made in prayer, and on the domes of our churches.
For our school community, this feast is a reminder of the central place the Cross holds in Orthodox life, not only as a symbol of suffering, but as the sign of victory over death. It also reminds us that the faith is passed on the way St. Helena passed it on, by seeking, uncovering and lifting up what was buried, so that the next generation can see it clearly.
At our school
In our Word of God classes, students of every age learn the story of the feast, the meaning of the eight-pointed Russian cross with its slanted lower bar, and the hymns sung in church on this day. Younger children learn to make the sign of the cross correctly and to say the troparion; older students read the accounts of St. Helena and Emperor Heraclius and discuss why the Church keeps a fast on a day of celebration.
We invite all families and friends of the Russian Orthodox School to join us in prayer and reflection as we mark this sacred day. Festal services are held at Holy Transfiguration Cathedral in Los Angeles, where our school has taught children the Law of God, the Russian language and Russian culture since 1951. Please check the cathedral schedule for the times of the Vigil and the Divine Liturgy.
С праздником Воздвижения Креста Господня! Кресту Твоему покланяемся, Владыко, и святое Воскресение Твое славим.