Preaching the exaltation of the honest and life-giving cross of the Lord. Sermon on the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!

Today, dear brothers and sisters, the Church celebrates the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. How was this holiday established in the Church? The Savior was removed from the Cross, the Cross was abandoned and lost. A few decades later, Jerusalem was destroyed, according to the word of our Lord Jesus Christ, who predicted that not one stone would be left here upon another. The city was completely destroyed - walls and buildings - everything burned down, a kind of charred wound was formed on the body of the earth. After some time, Emperor Adrian, in order to completely eradicate the memory of this city, that the city is associated with faith in the One God - our Lord Jesus Christ, ordered everything to be destroyed. It was built on this site new town, to which Aelius Hadrian ordered to give his name. A temple and a statue of the goddess Velera were erected above the place where Golgotha ​​was. Several centuries passed, the Christian Emperor Constantine became the head of the Roman Empire, and he stopped the persecution of Christians. He wanted to restore the memory of the Savior’s earthly life. His mother, Queen Helena, fervently desired to go to the Holy Land, to find the place where the Lord was crucified and the tomb in which He was buried. The king allocated funds, and Queen Helena went to distant Palestine. Here they found a cleft carved into the rock where our Lord Jesus Christ was buried. They found three crosses, but it was impossible to understand which of them was the Saving, Life-Giving Cross of the Lord, because the tablet with the inscription Jesus of Nazareth - King of the Jews, which is mentioned in the Gospel, flew off and lay to the side.

Patriarch Macarius of Jerusalem, with the belief that the Lord would miraculously reveal what the True Cross is, proposed a test. They brought a dying woman and, one by one, began to apply her to the crosses. When they applied it to the Cross of Christ, the dying woman was healed. Then the Patriarch of Jerusalem raised this Cross so that the crowds of people could see It. The Savior was nailed to the Cross by human malice, like a criminal, because the cross is a weapon of a terrible, many-hours painful execution, when a person dies in agony. Crowds of people walked around the Cross, mocking Him, calling on Him to come down from the Cross. People mocked the suffering of the Savior.

The Lord called Himself the Messiah and was Him. People imagined the Messiah completely differently, they thought that he was a superman who would defeat his enemies by force, and not a humble Teacher, Who has no place to lay his head. They thought that He would create the kingdom of Israel, which would dominate the whole world, but His kingdom turned out to be not of this world. The Savior preached perfect love. There is no sermon more painful for those who do not want to accept it. If a person strives for love, then he will meet him halfway, and if he is proud, self-sufficient and self-satisfied, then this sermon takes him out of his state. peace of mind, calls him to something he doesn’t want to go to. At the same time, one cannot remain calm; a person must either accept this preaching and change, or destroy the One who preaches love. The Jews, in their blindness, decided to destroy the One who preached divine perfect love.

But love is stronger than death. Although the Savior was crucified and died on the Cross, He was resurrected, because Divine life overcomes everything. The Lord has opened the way for us to eternal life, having taken upon himself responsibility for the sins that were committed by people who lived before him, with him and you and me. When we reject the Lord because we have little faith, when we do not want to humble ourselves, when we do not want and do not know how to love, we are opponents of God, we act the same as the ancient Jews.

Every year the Holy Church celebrates the Exaltation of the Life-giving Cross of the Lord as a reminder of the price that has been paid for our freedom to be with Christ, for the freedom to do good, for the freedom to resist evil; the Lord gives us the strength to defeat evil at its very root - in our souls. This holiday reminds us of this. We must strive with all our souls to be with Christ and not to be like those who crucified Him two thousand years ago. And He was crucified by human sin, which acts just as much now as it did then. God grant that this holiday of the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord will give a fresh impetus to the pursuit of righteousness, love for each other, humility that conquers everything, for the power of Christ overcomes any human inventions and deceits. May God grant that the victory of the Cross over sin will shine in our hearts! Amen.

September 27, 2004 Church of the All-Merciful Savior

http://www.pravmir.ru/article_660.html

We celebrate the second twelfth holiday, which follows the Nativity of the Virgin Mary.

The fact that the Church chose the Exaltation as the twelfth holiday indicates its extraordinary importance for every Christian. Christ said that each of us must take up our cross and follow Him. And our whole life should become this following of Christ, but on the condition that we bear the cross.

But most people come to the Church so that the priest and the Church can teach them how to evade the cross. It turns out to be such a paradox: a person comes, but wants everything to be easier. It would be easier to raise children, easier and easier to get married, faster and easier to separate. All the time a person has, as it were, sorrows, needs before God, but they are all about one thing: “Lord, make my life easier.”

And this desire to “go easier” – it actually contradicts the teaching of the Church, contradicts what Christ taught. This suggests that we, of course, have faith, because we come to the Church of Christ, but we do not go to Christ. Yes, we have faith. What's the problem?

The point is that our faith is not Christian.

We believe in a strong, omnipotent God, the Creator, we believe that He can help us in everything, and we want Him to help. And we ourselves pray, and we ask everyone around us to pray, so that everything will be better, cheaper, more satisfying, more beautiful for us. Christ set an example with His life: he didn’t even have his own home - he spent the night with strangers, he didn’t have second clothes - he walked around in one, he ate what they gave him - he ate what they gave him. We devote much more time to food, clothing, and houses than to pleasing God. Our search for work, the search for any structure in this life - they occupy a lot of our minds and our hearts, and there are a lot of prayers about this, but there is only one thing needed, as the Lord said (see Luke 10: 38-42).

Why is this happening? Because we consciously or unconsciously reject the cross. That is, we agree to somehow follow Christ, but on the condition that nothing hurts me, everyone will love me no matter how I behave, that I will not lose loved ones, and that the Lord will always bless me on the road, so that if you become infected, you will immediately recover, and so on. Can he do that? Maybe. Here, let him do it. And then I will follow Him.

But that's because the person doesn't understand where is he going Christ. Christ walked to Golgotha ​​and carried the Cross Himself. Only when he was already exhausted and fell, they asked two more men to help drag him to the place where they would nail Him alive to the Cross and hang Him in the scorching sun, stripped naked. That's where He was going. If you want to follow Christ, you go there too.

Why do you need to bear the cross? Because the cross is any test that befalls a person according to the Providence of God. And it was given to us not so that we would quarrel, be offended, or seek justice, but so that we would bravely survive it. We asked God for strength so that we could endure this and emerge from this trial in a Christian way: without anger, resentment, envy of others who are in this moment do not pass such tests. Because when a person endures trials, such a wonderful and absolutely necessary quality is born in his soul - patience. For a person to achieve patience, he should not have any grumbling against God, people, authorities, or parents. His whole life, with everything that is in it, must be accepted by him.

And so, if we cultivate uncomplaining patience in ourselves with the help of God, for which He sends us losses, sorrows, and illnesses, then we achieve the next virtue, which makes us Christians. This is humility. Ambrose of Optina even came up with a poem that is easy to learn: “without humility there is no salvation.” If you don’t want to humble yourself, it means there is no salvation for you. This means that Christ came for you in vain.

And then no matter what a person does, no matter how many candles he burns, no matter what he says, it will still be like ringing brass or sounding cymbal(1 Cor. 13:1). Because required quality he has no soul. Therefore, the cross is necessary for everyone who wants to be saved. And whoever does not understand this, but is constantly in complaint, in resentment, in condemnation, then excuse me, you have come to the wrong God. Because our God speaks take up your cross and follow me(Matt. 16:24). This is salvation. Salvation from sin, which can only be given by the grace of God, if a person takes on the cross and follows Christ.

September 27, 2014, on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord, His Holiness Patriarch Moscow and all Rus' Kirill committed Divine Liturgy in the Moscow Church of the Hieromartyr Clement, Pope of Rome. At the end of the service, the Primate of the Russian Church addressed the believers with a sermon.

Your Eminences and Graces! Venerable Father Superior, Father Leonid! Dear fathers, brothers and sisters!

I would like to cordially congratulate all of us on the twelfth feast of the Exaltation of the Precious Life-Giving Cross of the Lord and on the consecration of the Church of the Hieromartyr Clement, Pope of Rome, in Moscow.

This temple is one of the most famous and in all respects the most beautiful temples in the capital. I express my heartfelt gratitude to both the rector and everyone who worked to restore this temple.

The consecration coincided with the Feast of the Exaltation. Everyone knows that this holiday was established due to the fact that after the discovery of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord at Golgotha, by order of Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, this Cross was erected by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, in all likelihood, over a large crowd of people, as evidence of that the Cross was found and returned to people, but not as an instrument of torture and execution, but as a symbol of their salvation. And therefore, the service on the Feast of the Exaltation is primarily devoted to the Cross itself, to understanding what the Cross is for people’s lives, for preaching about Christ, for the work of salvation.

That is why on this day we read an excerpt from the first letter of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians, which contains surprisingly wise words about the Cross, imbued with Divine truth: For when the world did not know God through its wisdom, it pleased God to save the world through the foolishness of preaching(see Cor. 1:21).

These are truly amazing words. They contain the entire history of mankind, the history of the painful search for God, Divine truth, when the best minds tried to understand what this supernatural force is, the presence of which in life is somehow felt by every person, when people tried to find God, sometimes falling into terrible delusions, attributing Divine power to manifestations of nature or even works of art.

But there were God-seeking and amazing mental insights along this path, when pagan philosophers began to comprehend with their minds the presence of something that exceeds them and any other human mind. The holy fathers already said about such people that they had the seed of the Divine Word. They were not yet fertilized by this Word, but the seeds of Divine truth were present in their thoughts, in their search for the Divine. And yet, neither man’s primitive fear of the outside world nor menacing phenomena nature, neither the deification of these formidable manifestations of nature, nor the deification of oneself, which also happened on the path of seeking God, nor even those philosophical insights about which great Christian minds said that they, like a seed, contained the Divine word, did not lead people to true God.

This is what the Apostle Paul speaks about in one phrase. But this phrase covers a thousand years of intense and painful search for God. And when humanity on this path, straining all its strength, did not find God, including in the highest wisdom, in the highest science of that time, then God was pleased to save the world through the foolishness of preaching.

What is foolishness? This is a kind of madness. In the Christian tradition, special noble and great traits are attributed to him, and we know that among the saints there were holy fools. But the Apostle Paul spoke of a different type of foolishness. He spoke of stupidity, of incredible intellectual weakness, of what was a temptation for some and madness for others. How could man's attempt to know God be based on human weakness, almost on madness? What was the sermon about Christ? The Jews could not understand it; this, indeed, was a kind of temptation: how is it that a man is executed as a criminal by the most shameful execution, what good can come of him? What kind of power can come from? They shied away from the crosses. It was the most terrible image of humiliation, weakness, defeat and punishment.

Some parallels can be drawn with modern life. It’s as if someone suddenly began to say that the cell of a life prisoner brings salvation, not for one person, which is possible, but for the whole world. How would we react to such a sermon? Temptation for some and madness for others. That's what the sermon on the Cross was all about!

And the deepest, perhaps the most fundamental question arises: why did the Lord choose humiliation, which seems madness to every sane person? Why did He choose this method of salvation? Only with one goal - to make it clear to everyone that God saves man, and no human wisdom has anything to do with this, just as human strength has nothing to do with this.

A very important conclusion follows from this: relying on force cannot storm the heavens. Power is not the instrument, not the means by which one can achieve salvation. But many in pagan antiquity thought that only heroes become celestials: you must first be a hero in order to later ascend to pagan Olympus.

The sermon on the Cross testifies to God's complete rejection of all human power in the matter of saving people. And the Lord chooses the Cross - a symbol of humiliation, a symbol of weakness, a symbol of defeat, temptation for some and madness for others, in order to show salvation to the whole world from this Cross.

Probably, today’s words of the Apostle Paul are the most swipe according to critics of the Gospel, who are looking for some cultural, philosophical sources of the Gospel, some borrowings from ancient cults, and talk about natural origin Christianity. Couldn't appear in the world naturally nothing that contradicts common sense. And salvation through the Cross not only contradicts human common sense, it was a challenge to human rationality.

Who, inventing a religion, would risk exposing himself to such blows? If it had come from a person, then this kind of preaching would have been shattered into small pieces under the blow of the logic of the philosophers of that time and, more importantly, as a result of the complete rejection and rejection of such an idea by all who touched it. But the news about Christ has lived for two thousand years. It was this message that transformed the world, because it is not human, but Divine. Behind her is God Himself, who through the Cross, addressing us, says: not by the power of mind and the power of knowledge, not by human position, not by money, not by power, not by all that with which people associate their salvation in this life, you will not find eternal salvation , and therefore the fullness of life, and therefore your own happiness; you must believe Me, I save you through the Cross, through this madness for many.

And we know that the Lord saves, that the Cross is “the guardian of the entire universe,” the Cross is the triumph of the Church. Support for peoples and states is the Cross of the Glory of God. And in this already experienced perception of the power of the Cross is our entire faith in the correctness of Divine revelation that we are saved not by human power, but by the power of God. And if so, if salvation is from God, and not from man, then what is the most important thing in life? The most important thing is to serve God, our Savior, the One who brought this salvation to all peoples, for all eras and for all continents, who opened his arms to the human race. And there is little left for us - to respond to this Divine action, to respond to the action of the saving grace of God with our obedience, our trust in the words of the Lord, in His Divine commandments. And if we all learn the great truth that it is not our strength that saves us, but God, then a lot will change in our lives. We will be able to correctly set our life priorities, we will be able to walk the paths of our lives peacefully, calmly and savingly. And may the Cross of Christ sanctify this our life path. Amen.

Press service of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus'

1957

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!

Worshiping now the presented and ascended image of the Honorable and Life-giving Cross of the Lord, every true believer Orthodox Christian not only expresses his reverence for the instrument of our salvation, but also directs his thoughts and hearts to the very mystery of redemption.

"No one has ascended into heaven except the Son of Man, who is in heaven, who came down from heaven; and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever believes in Him may not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life« ().

The Fall of man is a mystery to the theological mind. Although the presence of a tempter in paradise contributes to a partial explanation of the possibility of disobeying the commandments of God and Eve if a person has free will, it remains incomprehensible, amazing, how could a person who had “God as his temple and robe,” who experienced the sweetness of communion with God, who lived in the rays of Divine love , - how could he become a violator of even the lightest commandment, an apostate and a traitor!

The mystery of lawlessness inevitably had to be opposed by the mystery of redemption. Unspeakable insolence led to such grave guilt that, according to the judgment of God's Truth, no repentance, no sacrifice on the part of a person or even all of humanity could wash away the guilt of the ancestors. A sacrifice was required that would have divine qualities, divine power and at the same time would be brought from human nature. The inconceivable Wisdom of God found a way that opened up the possibility of making such a sacrifice, and Divine Love turned this possibility into reality. The sacrifice that saves a person from curse and condemnation, giving the right not only to forgiveness, but also to adoption by God, became the God-man - our Lord Jesus Christ, consubstantial with God the Father in divinity and consubstantial with us in humanity. The precious Blood of the Divine Lamb became the means of purification and sanctification, and the instrument of redemption and symbol of victory over the devil, death, and sin was the Life-giving Cross of the Lord.

Before Christ the Savior, no one ascended to heaven. The greatest righteous people of the Old Testament time remained after death, although Abraham's bosom", but outside the gates of the Kingdom of Heaven. Christ opened these gates with His cross and brought the repentant, prudent thief with Him into paradise.

The path to the Kingdom of Heaven is now open to every believer in Christ, of course, who believes sincerely and not only in words, but in deeds, that is, who has faith “promoted by love.” Just as the Israelites were once saved from the “remorse of serpents” by looking at the copper serpent made by Moses at the command of God, so everyone who thirsts for salvation can now be saved from the destruction caused by deadly poison sin, if he looks with firm hope at the Cross of the Lord, he looks not passively, but wanting to fight sin and overcome it in himself with the gracious help of the Redeemer.

From this it is clear that a person’s salvation, acquired for him by the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross, is truly achieved only in the process of personal achievement or “bearing the cross”, the main objective which consists in achieving complete obedience to God.

The Cross of Christ reminds man of the need to sacrifice himself as a sacrifice of obedience to the One Who “ he was obedient even to death, death on the cross"...

"God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him." ().

This is how it was at the first coming of the Lord to earth. This continues today. As long as the Lord tolerates and accepts us as we are. How many times has he forgiven us grave sins for the sake of one repentant tear of ours, how many times has he fulfilled our requests, giving us what we asked for?” simply and without reproaches" (). But there will also be a moment when the Lord will come no longer to save, but to judge the world. And then He will ask us not only how we repented, but also how we lived, corrected ourselves, how we carried our cross in life, how we can prove our love for Him. The Cross of Christ is both an instrument of our salvation and our hope, but, at the same time, it is also formidable for the unworthy.” sign of the Son of Man“, which all humanity will one day see before the second, glorious coming to earth of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Remembering the event of the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord, let us, beloved, strive to ensure that the material image - the exaltation of the Cross before the eyes of believers - moves us to the spiritual aspiration of "mountain." Let the Cross of the Lord, this wondrous weapon of victory and salvation, be relentlessly presented to our spiritual gaze and remind us of the sacrifice of God’s Love for us, defeating us by bearing the cross to respond to this inscrutable love.

May the miracle of the resurrection of the dead and the healing of the sick woman from the touch of the Cross of the Lord be a reminder to us that our Savior, who wants to save everyone, is able to revive us to a pure and godly life, if only we rush to Him with all our hearts, inspired by undoubted faith, faith a bleeding woman who said to herself: “ if I touch you, I'll be healthy". Amen.

On September 27, Orthodox Christians celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross - one of the 12 main, or twelfth, holidays of the Orthodox Church.

The Exaltation of the Holy Cross: history

On the day of the Exaltation of the Cross, they remember how Queen Helen, Equal to the Apostles, found the Cross on which the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified. The cross was found in 326 near Mount Golgotha ​​in Jerusalem. Since the 7th century, the memory of the return of the Life-Giving Cross from Persia by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius (629) began to be associated with this day.

The holiday is called the Elevation of the Cross, because both upon the acquisition and upon the return of the Cross, the primate raised (Erected) the cross three times so that everyone could see it.

Equal to the Apostles Tsar Constantine wished to build churches of God on places sacred to Christians in Palestine (that is, at the place of birth, suffering and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, etc.) and to find the Cross on which the Savior was crucified. With great joy, his mother, St., undertook to fulfill the king’s desire. Queen Equal to the Apostles Helen.

In 326, Queen Helena went to Jerusalem for this purpose. She put in a lot of work to find the Cross of Christ, since the enemies of Christ hid the Cross by burying it in the ground. Finally, she was pointed to an elderly Jew named Judas, who knew where the Cross of the Lord was. After much questioning and persuasion, he was forced to speak. It turned out that the Holy Cross was thrown into one cave and covered with garbage and earth, and a pagan temple was built on top. Queen Helen ordered the destruction of this building and the excavation of a cave.

When they dug up the cave, they found in it three crosses and a tablet lying separately from them with the inscription: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” It was necessary to find out which of the three crosses is the Cross of the Savior. The Jerusalem Patriarch (Bishop) Macarius and Queen Helena firmly believed and hoped that God would indicate the Holy Cross of the Savior.

On the advice of the bishop, they began to bring the crosses one after another to one heavily sick woman. No miracle happened from the two crosses, but when the third cross was laid, she immediately became healthy. It happened that at that time the deceased was being carried past for burial. Then they began to lay crosses one after another on the deceased; and when they laid the third cross, the dead man came to life. In this way they recognized the cross of the Lord, through which the Lord performed miracles and showed life-giving the power of His Cross.

Queen Helena, Patriarch Macarius and the people around them bowed to the Cross of Christ with joy and reverence and kissed it. Christians, having learned about this great event, gathered in countless numbers to the place where the Cross of the Lord was found (found). Everyone wanted to venerate the holy life-giving Cross. But since it was impossible to do this due to the multitude of people, everyone began to ask to at least show it. Then Patriarch Macarius stood on elevated place and, so that everyone can see, several times erected(lift) him. The people, seeing the Cross of the Savior, bowed and exclaimed: “Lord, have mercy!”

The Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Kings Constantine and Helena, over the place of the suffering, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, built a vast and magnificent temple in honor of Resurrection of Christ. They also built temples on the Mount of Olives, in Bethlehem and in Fevron near the Oak of Mamri.

Queen Helena brought part of the Holy Cross to her son, Tsar Constantine, and left the other part in Jerusalem. This precious remnant of the Cross of Christ is still kept in the Church of the Resurrection of Christ.

Icons of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

The most common plot of the icon of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross developed in Russian icon painting in the 15th-16th centuries. The icon painter depicts a large crowd of people against the backdrop of a single-domed temple. In the center on the pulpit stands the Patriarch with the Cross raised above his head. The deacons support him by the arms. The cross is decorated with plant branches. In the foreground are the saints and everyone who came to worship the shrine. On the right are the figures of Tsar Constantine and Queen Helena.

Prayers

Troparion, tone 1

Kontakion, tone 4

Greatness

We magnify You, Life-Giving Christ, and honor Your Holy Cross, through which You saved us from the work of the enemy.

Choruses

Irmos of the 9th song

Hymns to the Cross of the Lord

Choir Orthodox Brotherhood in the name of the Archangel Michael.

Save, Lord, Your people and bless Your inheritance, victories Orthodox Christian bestowing on those who resist, and preserving Your residence through Your Cross.

Participated in the Exaltation of the Cross and the Sunday of the Cross

Having ascended to the cross by will, grant to Thy new residence Thy bounty, O Christ God; We rejoice in Your power, giving us victories as our companions, Your help, the weapon of peace, the invincible victory.

Choir of the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra and MDA

Rejoice Life-Giving Cross .

Rejoice, life-giving Cross, piety invincible victory, the door of heaven, the affirmation of the faithful, the fence of the Church, through which the aphid was ruined and abolished, and the mortal power was trampled, and we ascended from the earth to the heavenly, an invincible weapon, resisting demons: the glory of the martyrs, the saints, as truly fertilizer: a haven of salvation, granting great mercy to the world.

Prayers to the Honest and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord

First prayer

Be the Honest Cross, guardian of soul and body: in your image, casting down demons, driving away enemies, exercising passions and bestowing reverence, life, and strength, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit and the honest prayers of the Most Pure Mother of God. Amen.

Second prayer

O Most Honest and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord! In ancient times you were a shameful instrument of execution, but now you are a sign of our salvation, ever revered and glorified! How worthily can I, the unworthy, sing to You and how dare I bend the knees of my heart before my Redeemer, confessing my sins! But the mercy and ineffable love for mankind of the humble Boldness crucified upon you gives me, so that I may open my mouth to glorify You; For this reason I cry to Ti: Rejoice, Cross, the Church of Christ is the beauty and foundation, the whole universe is the affirmation, all Christians are the hope, kings are the power, the faithful are refuge, Angels are glory and praise, demons are fear, destruction and driving away, the wicked and infidels - shame, the righteous - pleasure, the burdened - weakness, the overwhelmed - refuge, the lost - a mentor, those possessed by passions - repentance, the poor - enrichment, the floating - the helmsman, the weak - strength, in battle - victory and conquest, the orphans - faithful protection, widows - intercessor, virgins - protection of chastity, hopeless - hope, sick - a doctor and the dead - resurrection! You, typified by the miraculous rod of Moses, are a life-giving source, watering those thirsty for spiritual life and delighting our sorrows; You are the bed on which the Risen Conqueror of Hell rested royally for three days. For this reason, morning, evening, and noon, I glorify Thee, blessed Tree, and I pray by the will of the One who has been crucified on Thee, may He enlighten and strengthen my mind with Thee, may He open in my heart a source of more perfect love and may all my deeds and paths be overshadowed by Thee May I take out and magnify Him who is Nailed to You, for my sin, the Lord my Savior. Amen.

Worship of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

On the day of the Exaltation of the Cross, it is necessary to celebrate the All-Night Vigil and Liturgy. But now they rarely serve all night long, so the central point is the festive divine service on the eve of the holiday - a vigil.

The Exaltation is the Twelfth Feast of the Lord (dedicated to the Lord Jesus Christ). Therefore, its service does not connect to any other service. For example, the memory of John Chrysostom is postponed to another day.

It is interesting that during Matins for the Exaltation of the Cross the Gospel is read not in the middle of the church, but in the altar.

The climax of the holiday is when the leading priest or bishop, dressed in purple vestments, carries out the Cross. All those praying in the temple kiss the shrine, and the primate anoints them with holy oil. During the general veneration of the Cross, the troparion is sung: “We worship Your Cross, O Master, and we glorify Your holy resurrection.”

The cross lies on the lectern until October 4 - the day of the Exaltation. At the offering, the priest takes the cross to the altar.

Rite of the Exaltation of the Cross

The Rite of the Exaltation of the Cross is performed at Matins after the great doxology and singing of the troparion Save, Lord, Your people..., consists of a five-fold overshadowing of the Cross and its elevation to the cardinal directions (to the east, south, west, north and again to the east). An important change, in comparison with studio monuments, is the addition to the rite of five deaconal petitions (corresponding to the five overshadowings of the Cross), after each of which a hundredfold Lord have mercy. In addition, according to the Jerusalem Rule, before raising the Cross, the primate must bow to the ground so that his head is a span from the ground (Greek. spithame, about 20 cm). During the correction of liturgical books in the Russian Church in the 2nd half. XVII century The order of the overshadowing of the cardinal directions during the rite was changed: the Cross is erected to the east, west, south, north and again to the east. This order has been maintained to this day.