Feast of the Discovery of the Holy Cross

The Feast commemorates the finding of the Holy Cross in 326 by St. Helena, the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine. Despite her advanced age, she traveled to Jerusalem in search of the cross on which Jesus was crucified.  It was Constantine who made Christianity the state religion of the empire after his conversion.

The pagan Roman emperors had tried to completely eradicate from human memory the holy places for Christians. St. Helena had the statue of Aphrodite and a temple that had been built on the site where Jesus had been crucified, destroyed.  During excavation of the site, however, the three crosses were discovered underneath the earth.

At the inspiration of Saint Macarius, Archbishop of Jerusalem, a woman on her deathbed was brought to the site to touch the crosses and as soon as she came near to the Cross of Jesus, she was made well.  Many miracles are said to have occurred through contact with the true cross.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was then built at the site of the discovery, by order of Helena and Constantine, and the cross placed inside it.  In 614, the cross was carried away by the Persians until recaptured by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius in 628 and returned to Jerusalem.

Because of her discovery of the cross, Helena became a saint in the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches.

The cross is a very important Christian symbol because it is symbolic of the crucifixion of Christ and his suffering and death for the sins of the people of the world. Relics connected with Christ’s suffering and death are imbued with the utmost religious importance.  With the discovery of the Holy Cross, Jerusalem became the principal site for Christian pilgrimages.