Around the year 1385, the Florentine painter Agnolo Gaddi completed a cycle of paintings in the choir of the Franciscan basilica of the Holy Cross in his native city. These frescoes, which are very well preserved, are the earliest surviving Italian example of a cycle dedicated to the Legend of the True Cross, based on the stories collected in Bl. Jacopo da Voragine’s Golden Legend. Gaddi’s work is not as refined as that of the most famous version of this cycle, the one by Piero della Francesca in the basilica of St Francis in Arezzo. In a manner typical of the elaborately decorative International Gothic style, he tends to put too many figures into too small a space, which makes it difficult to read the story, especially in such a tall space. (The vault of the choir is almost 40m above the floor.) His work has also been overshadowed by some of the church’s many other artistic treasures, a few of which will be mentioned below. The eight panels are arranged in chronological order, first down the right wall, then down the left.
At the top of the first panel, Adam’s son Seth receives from the Archangel Michael a branch from the Tree of Life which grows in the Garden of Paradise; in the lower part, he plants the branch in the mouth of his dead father, who lies in his grave, with Eve mourning to the right. From this branch grows the tree which will become the wood of the Cross; the depiction of a skull at the base of Christ’s Cross derives from this legend. (In Gaddi’s time, the principles of one-point linear perspective had yet to be worked out; this is why Seth appears to be so much larger in the background than in the foreground, which should of course be done the other way around.)
Second panel – The tree lives until the time of Solomon, when it is cut down and part of it used to make a bridge. When the Queen of Sheba comes to visit Solomon, she “sees in the Spirit that the Savior of the world will be hung upon this wood”; she therefore refuses to step on it, but kneels in adoration. She then tells Solomon that someone will be hung on that wood, by whose death the kingdom of the Jews will be destroyed; the king therefore has it buried deep in the earth. (One version of the story adds that the queen had webbed feet, which were made normal by touching the wood.)
Third panel – The pool called Probatica which is mentioned in John 5, 2 is built on the place where the wood is buried; shortly before the time of Christ’s passion, the wood floats to the surface, and is used to make a cross, the one which will become His. In the background in the upper left are seen the sick people waiting for their chance to descend into the pool.
In the fourth panel, the narration switches direction, moving from right to left. The Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, discovers three crosses buried on the site of Mt Calvary; in order to determine which one is that of Christ, a dying woman is brought to the site, and completely healed at the touch of the third one. (The basilica of the Holy Cross was officially founded on May 3, 1294, the feast of the Finding of the Cross.)
Fifth panel, uppermost on the left side of the choir – St Helena brings the relics of the Cross into the newly constructed basilica of the Anastasis, which is usually called the Holy Sepulcher in the West. (The absence of linear perspective is especially notable in the improbably crooked buildings in the background.)
In the days of the Venetian Republic, one of the most important aspects of the city’s religious life was a group of large and prestigious confraternities known as the “scuole grandi – the great schools.” These associations engaged in a wide variety of devotional and charitable activities, and each of them had a large hall on which these activities were centered.
In 1369, the scuola grande of St John the Evangelist, one of the oldest in the city, was given a relic of the True Cross, which soon became known for the miracles it effected. At the end of the 15th century, the confraternity commissioned a group of painters to make a series of panels celebrating nine of these miracles, which were to be displayed in the large hall where the relic was kept. One of these, a work by Raphael’s teacher Perugino (1446-1523), has been lost, but the other eight survive. Three were painted by Gentile Bellini (1429 ca. - 1507), scion of a family of painters who had long been among the most successful in the city; the rest are by artists who were in various ways his students or associates, who also assisted Bellini to varying degrees with his own canvases. (It is no small testament to the prestige which Perugino enjoyed throughout Italy in the late 15th century that he was invited to participate in this project, even though he was not a Venetian.) In 1797, the arch-criminal Napoleon, enemy of God and the Faith, overthrew the Republic and closed the scuole, whose properties were then plundered and dispersed; since 1820, the paintings have been displayed at the Galleria dell’ Accademia.
1. The Miraculous Healing of a Madman at the Rialto Bridge, ca. 1495, by Vittore Carpaccio (1460/65 - 1525 ca.) The principal scene, in the upper left part of the painting, shows the healing of a madman by the relic of the True Cross, which is held by Francesco Querini, Patriarch of Grado (1367-72) when the relic came to Venice. (From the time of its foundation in 774, the see of Venice was suffragan to the Patriarchate of Grado, a town roughly 55 miles to the east along the edge of the Adriatic. In 1451, shortly after St Lawrence Giustiniani was appointed bishop of Venice, the pope transferred the title of the patriarchate to his see.) This takes place on the loggia of a palace near the famous Rialto Bridge; most of the painting is taken up with the view of the surrounding area, a very busy scene very much to the taste of the times in Venice, as also seen in the remaining paintings. (The wooden bridge seen here collapsed in 1524; the central section of this older structure was movable so that taller ships could get up the canal.)
2. The Miracle in the Campo San Lio, ca. 1495, by Giovanni Mansueti (flor. 1485-1527). During the funeral procession of a member of the confraternity who had been but little devoted to the Holy Cross, the relic suddenly became too heavy to carry, until it was handed over to the parish priest.
3. The Relic of the True Cross is Given to the Scuola Grande of St John the Evangelist, ca. 1495, by Lazzaro Bastiani (1429-1512). This picture is an important record of the appearance of the confraternity’s complex before a number of subsequent renovations. The relic had previously belonged to a French Carmelite named Pierre de Thomas (1305-66), who was the papal legate to “the churches of the East” from 1357 until his death. When he died on the island of Cyprus, it passed to Philippe de Mézières, the chancellor of the Kingdom of Cyprus and Jerusalem, the successor state to the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem; it was de Mézières who in turn gave it to the confraternity.
4. A Miracle During the Procession on St Mark’s Day, 1496, by Gentile Bellini. On April 25th, the feast of Venice’s Patron Saint, the Evangelist Mark, the scuole grandi and many other pious associations would participate in a grand procession in front of the famous basilica that houses his relics. (In the days of the Republic, San Marco was not the cathedral of Venice, but the chapel of the doge and his court.) The members of the Scuola Grande of St John are seen in the lower middle of the painting, carrying the relic under a baldachin. Underneath the relic, a plaque is mounted into the pavement of the piazza, which commemorates the procession of 1444, during which a merchant from Brescia named Jacop de’ Salis knelt down and prayed before the relic, and his gravely injured son was immediately healed. This painting is also an important historical record of the mosaics on the façade of the basilica, and the older brick pavement of the piazza.
O Crux, splendidior cunctis astris, mundo celebris, hominibus multum amabilis, sanctior universis: quae sola fuisti digna portare talentum mundi: dulce lignum, dulces clavos, dulcia ferens pondera: salva praesentem catervam in tuis hodie laudibus congregatam. (Antiphon of the Magnificat at First Vespers of the Exaltation of the Cross.)
“O Cross, more splendid than all the stars, renowned in the world, much beloved of all men, holier than all things, who only were worthy to bear the Price of the world: o sweet wood, that bearest the sweet nails, the sweet burdens; save the present company, gathered this day in praise of thee.”
This is not, of course, the Gregorian version of this text for use as an antiphon, but a polyphonic motet made from it by the Netherlandish composer Adrian Willaert, (ca. 1490-1562), and sung by the ensemble Henry’s Eight. (They are named for King Henry VIII, the founder of Trinity College, Cambridge, where they originally formed in 1992.)
The Exaltation of the Cross also provides an opportunity to sing once again at Vespers the famous Passiontide hymn Vexilla Regis, one of the masterpieces of the 6th century writer St Venantius Fortunatus. Here the ensemble AdOriente (which is correct Italian, not Latin) alternates the classic Gregorian melody with an unnamed polyphonic setting.
The alternation of Gregorian and polyphony was a popular way of setting hymns especially in the Counter-Reformation, and some of the best examples are those of Spanish composer Tomás Luis de Victória. This version is particularly interesting for two reasons; the melody of the Gregorian parts is quite different from the Roman one, and the text of the hymn is that used before it was revised by Pope Urban VIII, (given here with Spanish translation.)
In the Byzantine Rite, the Exaltation of the Cross is one of the few days on which the Trisagion, “Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us!” is replaced by a different text, “We adore Thy Cross, o Lord, and we glorify Thy holy Resurrection.” (The Trisagion is sung between the kontakia, the variable hymn of the Sunday or Saint’s feast, and the Prokimen which introduces the Epistle.) The latter text is also sung the 3rd Sunday of Lent, the Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross, as seen here in the Orthodox cathedral of Kropyvnytskyi in central Ukraine.
In the mid-15th century, the Italian painter Piero della Francesca (1416-92) did a remarkable series of frescoes in the choir of the Basilica of St Francis in Arezzo, known as The History of the True Cross. Although a few sections of the paintings are completely lost, most of it is in very good condition; the entire cycle was beautifully restored in the 1990s. Arezzo is a lovely city, but it would be worth a visit even if there were nothing else to see there besides these works.
The cycle includes not only St Helena’s discovery of the Cross, which is celebrated today, and its recovery in the 7th-century, which is celebrated on September 14th, but also some of the popular stories collectively known as the Legend of the Cross, as recounted in Bl. Jacopo de Voragine’s Golden Legend and elsewhere. It has to be said that some of these stories stretch the bounds of credibility well past the breaking point, a fact of which Bl. Jacopo was quite aware. In his account of today’s feast, he refers several times to conflicting accounts in the histories to which he had access. The stories are not depicted in order within the choir itself; I will give them here in the chronological order of the legend. (Click on the images to enlarge them.)
The first panel (right wall at the top) depicts the death of Adam, the elderly man lying on the ground on the right, with Eve supporting him from behind. His son Seth receives from the Archangel Michael a branch from the Tree of Life in the Garden of Paradise, which he plants in his dead father’s mouth (at the bottom, to the left of the tree.) From this branch grows the tree which will become the wood of the Cross. (The depiction of a skull at the base of Christ’s Cross derives from this legend.)
Second panel, below the first - The tree lives until the time of Solomon, when it is cut down and part of it used to make a bridge. When the Queen of Sheba comes to visit Solomon, she recognizes it as coming from the Tree of Life, and kneels before it. On the right, she meets Solomon and his court, and bows before him. One version of the story adds that she had webbed feet, which were made normal by touching the wood. (Piero della Francesca’s mastery of the art of perspective is seen very nicely in the horse on the far left. His habit of depicting people in unusual hats, which he shares with a number of his Tuscan contemporaries, comes from seeing the delegates of the Eastern churches to the Council of Florence, which concluded shortly before he began this project.)
The third panel is to the left of the one above, on the back wall; Solomon has the wood from the bridge buried. (Piero does not depict the story of how the wood was then recovered and used to make the Cross of Christ.)
In the fourth panel just below it, the story moves forward to Constantine; an angel appears to him in a dream as he sleeps in his tent, the night before the great battle which will make him master of the Roman Empire, leading to his conversion. The angel bears a small Cross in his hand, a very subtle depiction of the In hoc signo vinces episode. (Piero has here done a very skillful depiction of a night scene, which most artists of the Renaissance shy away from.)
Returning to the right wall, to the right of the panel above, Constantine defeats Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, another tour-de-force of perspective, but sadly also the most damaged of the frescoes.
After the death of Christ, the wood of His Cross is buried again. According to the legend, when St Helena went to find it, some of the Jewish leaders knew where it was, but refused to tell her, so she threatened to have them burned alive. They therefore handed over to her one of their number, a man named Judas, whom she had lowered into a well and left for several days, until he agreed to reveal its location. This scene, to the left of the window at the back wall, shows him being lifted out of the well; his foot on the edge of the well is another example of Piero’s clever mastery of perspective. (This distasteful episode furnished the antiphons for Lauds, Vespers and the minor Hours of the Finding of the Cross in the pre-Tridentine Roman Breviary; the second, for example, reads “Then she ordered them all to be burned, but they, being fearful, handed over Judas, alleluja.” These were removed in Clement VIII’s revision of the Tridentine Breviary, and replaced with the antiphons of the Exaltation.)
St Helena finds the crosses of both Christ and the two thieves by digging up Mt Calvary. The Lord’s is identified by touching all three to a dead man whose funeral procession happens to be passing by; the third one raises the man back to life, at which all present adore it. (Piero is really showing off on the right with the perspective of the Cross. This panel is in the middle of the left wall.)
The Cross is stolen from the church of the Holy Sepulcher by the Persians when they take the city of Jerusalem in 614 AD. This spectacularly chaotic battle scene shows the defeat of the Persian Emperor Chosroes at the hand of the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, which took place in 627 at Nineveh. Chosroes returns in defeat to his capital, where he is murdered by his elder son and successor Siroes. The latter will sue for peace with Heraclius, who makes the return of the relics of the Cross one of the conditions for the treaty. (This panel is located lowest on the left wall, to mirror the Battle of the Milvian Bridge on the right wall.)
At the top of the left wall, Heraclius, simply dressed and barefooted, brings the relics of the Cross back into Jerusalem. As described in the Matins lessons for the Exaltation of the Cross, on approaching the city, Heraclius found himself unable to pass the gate, held back by a mysterious force. The bishop of Jerusalem then told him to imitate the poverty and humility of the King of kings by laying aside his royal robes, at which he was able to continue his way to the Holy Sepulcher. It may be guessed that this story was particularly appealing to the Franciscans who sang Mass and Office in this choir every day, and was therefore put at the top as the most “exalted” of the scenes. (Here Piero really goes to town with the funny hats!)
To the left of the window in the back wall, below the scene of Judas being lifted out of the well, is depicted the Annunciation. More than one art historian has failed to realize that this is also, obliquely, part of the Holy Cross cycle, in accord with the ancient tradition, very widely accepted in the Middle Ages and beyond, that the earthly life of Christ was a perfectly circle of years, and that the day of His Incarnation was the same as the day of His death.
We are happy to share this article by Fr Deacon Philip Gilbert on the feasts of the Cross in the Byzantine tradition, since next Sunday, the Third of Lent, is dedicated to the Veneration of the Holy Cross. Father Philip is a deacon of the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church; we have previously published his articles on the week preceding Great Lent, on the first ceremony of Lent in the Byzantine Rite, Vespers of Forgiveness Sunday, and on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, as the First Sunday of Lent is called. We also published photographs and a video of his subdiaconal ordination in 2018.
In the Byzantine tradition, in addition to the commemorations of the Holy Cross on each Wednesday and Friday, there are three major feasts of the Cross over the course of the year, on September 14, August 1, and the third Sunday of the Great Fast.
The first of these is formally known as “the Universal Exaltation (or Elevation) of the Holy Cross”, and commemorates the discovery of the relics of the True Cross in 326. In the wake of the famous appearance of the cross to the Emperor Constantine just before the battle of the Milvian Bridge, and the ensuing victory which made him master of the Roman Empire, he sent his mother Saint Helena to Jerusalem to find the Cross. In the excavations of Golgatha (where a temple to Aphrodite had been set up by the pagan emperor Hadrian [1]), three crosses were found, but it was impossible to tell which was the saving cross of the Lord, and which belonged to the thieves. A dying widow was therefore brought to the site to see if one of them would heal her, and when one of them did indeed miraculously restore her to health, that cross was determined to be the one upon which our Lord was crucified. The traditional icon of this feast depicts the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Macarius, standing on the ambo of a church and holding up this Cross before the crowd of faithful for all to see. When the people beheld the Holy Cross being thus elevated, they cried out “Lord, have mercy!” Angels or deacons hold his elbows, assisting him as he elevated the Cross, while Saint Helen stands below the ambo, wearing her imperial crown.
The second feast, on August 1st, which is also the feast day of the Holy Maccabee martyrs, is called the Procession of the Holy Cross. The Synaxarion of that day (the equivalent of the Roman martyrology) succinctly says:
Because of the many diseases that occur in the month of August, the custom prevailed of old in Constantinople to carry the precious Wood of the Cross in procession throughout the city for its sanctification and its deliverance from illnesses. It was brought forth from the imperial treasury on the last day of July and placed upon the Holy Table of the Great Church of the Holy Wisdom; and beginning today, until the Dormition of the Theotokos, it was carried in procession throughout the city and was set forth for veneration before the people. [2]
A brief video of a procession with a relic of the Cross held at the beginning of the pandemic four years ago, at the Greek-Catholic cathedral of St George in Lviv, Ukraine.
On this day, holy water is blessed with a rite which includes the reading of John 5, 1-4; this ties the blessing of waters, and the supplication to be healed from disease, to the words of the Gospel, “From time to time an angel of the Lord used to come down into the pool; and the water was stirred up, so the first one to get in after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease afflicted him.” Fr. David Petras explains that “Water was formerly blessed frequently, usually on the first day of each month. The blessing for August 1 is the only one retained in the Typikon (the ordinal of the Byzantine Rite).” [3]
The third major commemoration of the Holy Cross is fixed not to a specific date on the calendar, but instead to the cycle of movable feasts centered on Pascha, and thus Great Lent. The third Sunday of the Great Fast is the Veneration of the Holy Cross, which is continually observed all through the following fourth week of Lent. Archbishop Job Getcha writes:
“The third Sunday of Great Lent is dedicated to the veneration of the lifegiving Cross, … According to Nicephoras Kallistos Xanthopoulos in his Synaxarion, the Cross is offered to us as a comfort and encouragement in our journey through Great Lent, and it announces the approach of the Passion and Resurrection of the Lord.” [4]
Another Synaxarion reading says:
With the help of God, we have almost reached the middle of the course of the Fast, where our strength has been worn down through abstinence, and the full difficulty of the labour set before us becomes apparent. Therefore our holy Mother, the Church of Christ, now brings to our help the all-holy Cross, the joy of the world, the strength of the faithful, the staff of the just, and the hope of sinners, so that by venerating it reverently, we might receive strength and grace to complete the divine struggle of the Fast. [5]
Another Synaxarion explains: “when a king is coming, at first his banner and symbols appear, then he himself comes glad and rejoicing about his victory and filling with joy those under him; likewise, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is about to show us His victory over death, and appear to us in the glory of the Resurrection Day, is sending us in advance His scepter, the royal symbol – the Life-Giving Cross – and it fills us with joy and makes us ready to meet, inasmuch as it is possible for us, the King himself, and to render glory to His victory...” [6] By having the Holy Cross set before us at the midpoint of the Fast, we are reminded what else is very soon to be set before us: Great and Holy Week, and the commemoration of Christ’s betrayal, passion, death, and victorious and glorious resurrection from the dead.
On all three of these commemorations, an image of the Cross, or if a parish has one, a relic of the True Cross itself, is adorned with flowers and placed on a tray. Some typika prescribe that it be laid on a bed of basil leaves, since some accounts of the finding of the Cross say that basil grew on the place where the Cross was uncovered at Golgatha. But this custom may arise from the fittingness of adorning the cross of our King with a plant whose name has the same root as the word for “royal” and “emperor”. (The troparion to St. Basil the Great employs this same play on words and addresses him as “O royal one”).
After Small Vespers, the Holy Cross is taken from the sacristy to the Holy Table by the priest, the deacon incensing before him as he goes, and is placed on the Table in place of the Gospel Book. At the end of the Great Doxology of Orthros, the Cross is solemnly carried out the north door of the iconostasis and placed in the center of the church on the analogion or tetrapod (a stand for holding up icons). It is incensed on all sides, while the troparion to the Holy Cross is sung three times: “O Lord, save your people and bless Your inheritance. Grant victory to the emperor (or orthodox Christians, or, our country) over his/their enemies, and guard your habitation by Your Cross.”
On September 14, and only on this day, the rite of the Exaltation is performed at this point. The priest takes up the cross, and first facing the East, then in each cardinal direction until he is once again facing East, he says a petition of a special litany for this rite, and then, as the people sing “Lord, have mercy” 24 or 100 times, “the priest slowly bows as deeply as he can, holding the Cross and then rising up again during the chant. This is done for each of the five petitions… The cross is then replaced on the tetrapod.” [7] In some places, fragrant rose water is poured on the Cross as it is elevated, signifying that it is the spring of life for sinners. (In the following video, taken at the church of St Elias in Brampton, Ontario, last September, this part of the ritual begins at 2:32:00.)
Once the adorned Cross is placed on the analogion for veneration, the hymn which replaces the usual Trisagion during feasts of the Cross is sung: “Before Your Cross we bow down in worship, O Master, and Your holy resurrection we glorify.” This is done three times, and all make a prostration after each. The clergy and faithful then all come forward to venerate the cross by kissing it, customarily making two prostrations before and one after. (Video taken at the Golden-Domed Monastery of St Michael in Kyiv, Ukraine, on the Third Sunday of Lent, 2021.)
During the week after the Third Sunday of Lent, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, there is also a solemn veneration of the Cross at the Third Hour, at which “Before your Cross” is sung again, while the priest incenses it on all sides, followed by the singing of a group of hymns from Matins, while all approach to venerate the Cross. [8] It remains in the center of the temple until the end of the 9th hour and the Typika service on the following Friday. Having been solemnly venerated one last time, it is then returned to the sacristy just before the celebration of the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts on Friday evening.
It is worth noting that all three of these feasts are days of strict abstinence, regardless of what day of the week they fall on. In many places, dark (burgundy or purple) vestments are worn, but in others, a festal bright red is customary.
[1] Cf. The Great Horologion, trans. Holy Transfiguration Monastery (Boston: 1997), 250.
This feast is called the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, because Chosroas, the king of the Persians, came to Jerusalem, and took away with him from there the wood of the Lord’s Cross, and having made for himself a house decorated like heaven, he made a seat for himself in it, and put the wood on his right in the place of the Son, and a rooster on his left in the place of the Holy Spirit, and standing in the middle, ordered that he be called God.
The Emperor Chosroas adored by the Persians, and Heraclius being told in a dream to recover the relics of the Cross. Painted ca. 1385 by Agnolo Gaddi in the choir of the Franciscan basilica of the Holy Cross in Florence, as a part of a cycle which tells the full legend of the Cross.
On hearing this, the Roman emperor Heraclius moved his army (against the Persians) and having beaten the son of Chosroas in single combat, took back the Lord’s cross. As he was approaching Jerusalem in great splendor, the gates of the city were closed by an angel, so that he could not enter. And as he wondered very greatly at this, a voice was heard from heaven saying that the King of kings, when He came to suffer for all, had not entered Jerusalem thus decked out, but humbly, and sitting upon a donkey.
And he, at once recognizing his own pride, came down from his horse, and was greatly humbled. And the gates opened up to him of their own accord, and he entered the city barefoot, and as he did so, many people who suffered from various kinds of ailments were cured through the Cross, and the emperor himself broke forth with these most devout praises of the Cross, saying, ‘O Cross, moreover splendid than all the stars, renowned to the world, etc.’ Therefore, he lifted up the cross, and established, with the agreement of the bishops, that in his empire the day of the Exaltation would henceforth be a solemn feast.
The Exaltation of the Cross by Heraclius, mid-15th century, by Piero della Francesca; part of a similar cycle in the basilica of St Francis in Arezzo, Italy. The artist’s habit of depicting people in outlandish hats, which he shares with a number of his Tuscan contemporaries, comes from seeing the delegates of the Eastern churches to the ecumenical council of Florence, which concluded in 1449, shortly before he began this project.
Long afterwards, in the sacristy of St Peter’s basilica, Pope Sergius found a silver container, and in it a cross put together from a large portion of the saving wood, adorned with precious stones, and this was put in the basilica of the Savior (i.e. the Lateran), and adored by the people on the day of the Exaltation.
The feast of the Finding of the Cross is greater than that of the Exaltation because of the authority of the one who instituted it, for the former was established by the Pope, namely Eusebius, but the latter by the emperor.” (Rationale Divinorum Officiorum 7, 30, 1-2)
Our friend Durandus evinces some very typically medieval confusion in narrating these events, which took place nearly 700 years before his time. In the reign of the Persian emperor Khosrow II (590-628), whose name is usually Latinized as Chosroas, one of his generals did capture the city of Jerusalem, steal the True Cross from the basilica of the Holy Sepulcher, and bring it back with him to Persia. The Byzantine emperor Heraclius then engaged Persia in a long and spectacularly successful war, penetrating into enemy territory so deeply and so rapidly that at times he lost communication with his own supply lines. In the midst of his astonishing reversals, Khosrow was overthrown in 628 by his son Kavad, who then sued for peace. Heraclius was able to impose the return of the True Cross and various other relics taken in 614 as one of the terms of the peace treaty, and did indeed bring them back to the Holy City in a splendid ceremony.
Piero’s fantastically complicated version of the battle between Heraclius and Chosroas.
All this is narrated in the Roman Breviary in the second nocturn of Matins, leaving out the most obviously legendary embellishment, the story of Chosroas and his chamber made to look like heaven, which is also included in Bl. Jacopo da Voragine’s Golden Legend. The idea of an emperor ordering himself to be worshiped as a god is, of course, a memory of the ancient Romans’ cult of the divinized emperors, the principal cause of conflict between them and the early Christians. It is also unlikely that a Greek-speaking emperor would “break forth with devout praises of the Cross” in the form of the Roman antiphon for the Magnificat at First Vespers.
Aña O Crux, splendidior cunctis astris, mundo célebris, homínibus multum amábilis, sanctior universis: quae sola fuisti digna portáre talentum mundi, dulce lignum, dulces clavos, dulcia ferens póndera; salva praesentem catervam in tuis hodie láudibus congregátam. (O Cross, more splendid than all the stars, renowned throughout the world, much loved by men, more holy than all things, who alone wast worthy to bear the Price of the world, sweet word, bearing the sweet nails and the sweet burdens, save the flock here gathered today in thy praises. A polyphonic setting by Orlando de Lassus.)
The events surrounding the loss and recovery of the True Cross under Heraclius have long been associated with the feast of the Exaltation in the West, but in the Byzantine Rite, they are not mentioned at all. There are, however, a few mentions of the emperor Constantine in the feast’s liturgical texts, and one of his mother Helena, the discoverer of the Cross.
As I explained in an article last year, many major feasts in the Byzantine Rite are followed immediately by a “synaxis” (“σύναξις” in Greek, “собóръ” in Church Slavonic), a commemoration of a sacred person who figures prominently in the feast, but who is, as it were, overshadowed by its principal subject. (Scholars of the Eastern rites also call them “concomitant feasts.” Byzantium borrowed this custom, along with various others, from the traditions of the Syrian church and of Jerusalem.) This past Saturday, for example, was the Synaxis of Ss Joachim and Anne, which is kept the day after the Birth of the Virgin Mary. Another is kept in honor of the Virgin Herself on the day after Christmas, another of St Gabriel on the day after the Annunciation, etc.
The dedication of the church of the Holy Sepulcher, which Constantine and Helena built over the site of the Lord’s tomb, was celebrated on September 13th, and was one of the most important feasts in Jerusalem; in the oldest sources of the city’s native liturgical rite, it was kept with an octave. The complex also contained the site where the True Cross was found, and the Cross itself was long kept within it. The Exaltation of the Cross therefore began as a kind of synaxis or concomitant feast for this dedication. Since the latter was closely tied to the traditions of the Holy City, but obviously less important elsewhere, in Byzantium, the Exaltation supplanted the Dedication in importance.
Durandus notes that in the West, the feast of the Finding of the Cross was superior in dignity to that of the Exaltation, although the reason which he gives for this is not really correct. (In pre-Tridentine Roman books, and in the missal and breviary of St Pius V, they have the same rank.) There was a Pope called Eusebius, but he ruled for only 4 months in the year 310, and obviously has nothing to do with either feast.
There have been four Popes named Sergius. Durandus does not say which was the one who discovered the silver reliquary of the True Cross in the sacristy of St Peter’s basilica, but such a reliquary does exist. The Crux Vaticana is also known as the Cross of Justin II, the early Byzantine emperor (reigned 565-78) who gave it to Pope John III sometime around 568. The wood of the Cross contained within it comes from the portion which St Helena had sent to her son in Constantinople more than 200 years earlier. This cross was used for centuries at the adoration ceremony of Good Friday; after being kissed by so many people for so long, the original container mounted in the middle finally disintegrated, and was replaced in the early 19th century.
Justin II gave a second cross, very similar in form, to St Radegund, the Queen of the Franks (520 ca. – 587); her friend St Venantius Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers, composed the famous hymns of the Cross Vexilla Regis and Pange, lingua to celebrate its arrival.
The Durandus Institute for Sacred Liturgy and Music has arranged for the celebration of Solemn Vespers and Benediction at the Basilica of St Patrick’s Old Cathedral in New York City on September 14th, for the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. A chamber orchestra will assist with some of the greatest choral works ever written for the Divine Office, the centerpiece being Mozart’s Vesperae Solemnes de Confessore, K. 339, to be supplemented with:
Concerto No. 1 in D Major – W. A. Mozart after Johann Christian Bach Domine ad adjuvandum – Baldassare Galuppi O Salutaris – Luigi Cherubini Salve Regina – Vincenzo Bellini
The celebrating priest will be assisted by six other clerics as cantors in copes. Following Vespers will be a short sermon, then Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Visitors will also be able to enjoy the celebrations for the feast of San Gennaro, a week-long festival in New York City’s Little Italy district, which begins on this same day.
Around the year 1385, the Florentine painter Agnolo Gaddi completed a cycle of paintings in the choir of the Franciscan basilica of the Holy Cross in his native city. These frescoes, which are very well preserved, are the earliest surviving Italian example of a cycle dedicated to the Legend of the True Cross, based on the stories collected in Bl. Jacopo da Voragine’s Golden Legend. Gaddi’s work is not as refined as that of the most famous version of this cycle, the one by Piero della Francesca in the basilica of St Francis in Arezzo. In a manner typical of the elaborately decorative International Gothic style, he tends to put too many figures into too small a space, which makes it difficult to read the story, especially in such a tall space. (The vault of the choir is almost 40m above the floor.) His work has also been overshadowed by some of the church’s many other artistic treasures, a few of which will be mentioned below. The eight panels are arranged in chronological order, first down the right wall, then down the left.
At the top of the first panel, Adam’s son Seth receives from the Archangel Michael a branch from the Tree of Life which grows in the Garden of Paradise; in the lower part, he plants the branch in the mouth of his dead father, who lies in his grave, with Eve mourning to the right. From this branch grows the tree which will become the wood of the Cross; the depiction of a skull at the base of Christ’s Cross derives from this legend. (In Gaddi’s time, the principles of one-point linear perspective had yet to be worked out; this is why Seth appears to be so much larger in the background than in the foreground, which should of course be done the other way around.)
Second panel – The tree lives until the time of Solomon, when it is cut down and part of it used to make a bridge. When the Queen of Sheba comes to visit Solomon, she “sees in the Spirit that the Savior of the world will be hung upon this wood”; she therefore refuses to step on it, but kneels in adoration. She then tells Solomon that someone will be hung on that wood, by whose death the kingdom of the Jews will be destroyed; the king therefore has it buried deep in the earth. (One version of the story adds that the queen had webbed feet, which were made normal by touching the wood.)
Third panel – The pool called Probatica which is mentioned in John 5, 2 is built on the place where the wood is buried; shortly before the time of Christ’s passion, the wood floats to the surface, and is used to make a cross, the one which will become His. In the background in the upper left are seen the sick people waiting for their chance to descend into the pool.
In the fourth panel, the narration switches direction, moving from right to left. The Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, discovers three crosses buried on the site of Mt Calvary; in order to determine which one is that of Christ, a dying woman is brought to the site, and completely healed at the touch of the third one. (The basilica of the Holy Cross was officially founded on May 3, 1294, the feast of the Finding of the Cross.)
Fifth panel, uppermost on the left side of the choir – St Helena brings the relics of the Cross into the newly constructed basilica of the Anastasis, which is usually called the Holy Sepulcher in the West. (The absence of linear perspective is especially notable in the improbably crooked buildings in the background.)
O Crux, splendidior cunctis astris, mundo celebris, hominibus multum amabilis, sanctior universis: quae sola fuisti digna portare talentum mundi: dulce lignum, dulces clavos, dulcia ferens pondera: salva praesentem catervam in tuis hodie laudibus congregatam. (Antiphon of the Magnificat at First Vespers of the Exaltation of the Cross.)
“O Cross, more splendid than all the stars, renowned in the world, much beloved of all men, holier than all things, who only were worthy to bear the Price of the world: o sweet wood, that bearest the sweet nails, the sweet burdens; save the present company, gathered this day in praise of thee.”
This is not, of course, the Gregorian version of this text for use as an antiphon, but a polyphonic motet made from it by the Netherlandish composer Adrian Willaert, (ca. 1490-1562), and sung by the ensemble Henry’s Eight. (They are named for King Henry VIII, the founder of Trinity College, Cambridge, where they originally formed in 1992.)
The Exaltation of the Cross also provides an opportunity to sing once again at Vespers the famous Passiontide hymn Vexilla Regis, one of the masterpieces of the 6th century writer St Venantius Fortunatus. Here the ensemble AdOriente (which is correct Italian, not Latin) alternates the classic Gregorian melody with an unnamed polyphonic setting.
The alternation of Gregorian and polyphony was a popular way of setting hymns especially in the Counter-Reformation, and some of the best examples are those of Spanish composer Tomás Luis de Victória. This version is particularly interesting for two reasons; the melody of the Gregorian parts is quite different from the Roman one, and the text of the hymn is that used before it was revised by Pope Urban VIII, (given here with Spanish translation.)
In the Byzantine Rite, the Exaltation of the Cross is one of the few days on which the Trisagion, “Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us!” is replaced by a different text, “We adore Thy Cross, o Lord, and we glorify Thy holy Resurrection.” (The Trisagion is sung between the kontakia, the variable hymn of the Sunday or Saint’s feast, and the Prokimen which introduces the Epistle.) The latter text is also sung the 3rd Sunday of Lent, the Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross, as seen here in the Orthodox cathedral of Kropyvnytskyi in central Ukraine.
Many texts from the Byzantine Rite have also been recast as motets; this setting of “We adore Thy Cross” is sung by the choir of the Trinity Lavra of St Sergius, one the most important monasteries in Russia.
One week from today, September 14th, is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, which derives from the discovery by Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine, of the Lord’s cross in Jerusalem on Sept. 14, 320. Churches that had a major relic of the cross, for example, Jerusalem, Constantinople, and Rome, developed a custom of showing this relic to the faithful on Sept. 14 in a solemn ceremony called the “Exaltation - lifting up,” of the Cross.
Consideration of the symbol of the Cross leads us into the Passion, of course, and so touches perhaps every aspect of the Christian faith in some way. I am moved to write about them by international events that are hitting the headlines, and within this week, the 20th anniversary of 9/11. These events brought to mind three short troparia (hymns) of the Holy Cross sung in the Eastern Church, which are also regularly said at morning prayer throughout the year. They establish, from a Christian point of view, the validity of the existence of the nation as an entity, and hence its preservation by force of arms if necessary. For those who feel that there is a ring of unsavory jingoism in them in calling for victory over our enemies, I would note that we are told that the measure of such a victory over our enemies that comes from God is peace.
O Lord save your people and bless Your inheritance, grant victory to our country over its enemies, and preserve Your community by the power of your Cross.
O Christ our God, who chose by your free volition to be elevated upon the holy Cross, grant Your mercies to your new people who are called by Your name: in Your power gladden the hearts of our civil authorities; strengthen them in every good deed, so that Your true alliance may be for them a weapon of peace and a standard of victory.
O dread Champion, who cannot be put to confusion, despise not our petitions. O Good One, all-lauded Theotokos, establish the way of those who hold the Orthodox faith; save those you have called to rule over us; bestow upon them victory from heaven; for you gave birth to God, O only blessed one.
The image above is of the “Mathilda Cross”, commissioned by Mathilda, Abbess of Essen from 973 to her death in 1011, now in the treasury of Essen Minster (along with other items given by her). She is shown with the Virgin and Child in the enamel plaque at the base of the front. The cross was probably made in Cologne or Essen in the years just before her death. Mathilda was a member of the Ottonian imperial family, the granddaughter of Otto the Great and sister of Otto, Duke of Bavaria and Swabia (d. 982). The corpus (body) is a replacement from later in the century. The cross re-uses classical engraved gems and cameos, while enamel roundels at the ends of the arms show Sol and Luna (personifications of the Sun and Moon). The back is a plain gold plate engraved with an Agnus Dei in the center and the symbols of the Evangelists at the ends of the members, all in roundels amid decoration of dots and foliage motifs.
In the mid-15th century, the Italian painter Piero della Francesca (1416-92) did a remarkable series of frescoes in the choir of the Basilica of St Francis in Arezzo, known as The History of the True Cross. Although a few sections of the paintings are completely lost, most of it is in very good condition; the entire cycle was beautifully restored in the 1990s. Arezzo is a lovely city, but it would be worth a visit even if there were nothing else to see there besides these works.
The cycle includes not only St Helena’s discovery of the Cross, which is traditionally celebrated today, and its recovery in the 7th-century, which is celebrated on September 14th, but also some of the popular stories collectively known as the Legend of the Cross, as recounted in Bl. Jacopo de Voragine’s Golden Legend and elsewhere. It has to be said that some of these stories stretch the bounds of credibility well past the breaking point, a fact of which Bl. Jacopo was quite aware. In his account of today’s feast, he refers several times to conflicting accounts in the histories to which he had access. The stories are not depicted in order within the choir itself; I will give them here in the chronological order of the legend. (Click on the images to enlarge them.)
The first panel (right wall at the top) depicts the death of Adam, the elderly man lying on the ground on the right, with Eve supporting him from behind. His son Seth receives from the Archangel Michael a branch from the Tree of Life in the Garden of Paradise, which he plants in his dead father’s mouth (at the bottom, to the left of the tree.) From this branch grows the tree which will become the wood of the Cross. (The depiction of a skull at the base of Christ’s Cross derives from this legend.)
Second panel, below the first - The tree lives until the time of Solomon, when it is cut down and part of it used to make a bridge. When the Queen of Sheba comes to visit Solomon, she recognizes it as coming from the Tree of Life, and kneels before it. On the right, she meets Solomon and his court, and bows before him. One version of the story adds that she had webbed feet, which were made normal by touching the wood. (Piero della Francesca’s mastery of the art of perspective is seen very nicely in the horse on the far left. His habit of depicting people in unusual hats, which he shares with a number of his Tuscan contemporaries, comes from seeing the delegates of the Eastern churches to the Council of Florence, which concluded shortly before he began this project.)
The third panel is to the left of the one above, on the back wall; Solomon has the wood from the bridge buried. (Piero does not depict the story of how the wood was then recovered and used to make the Cross of Christ.)
In the fourth panel just below it, the story moves forward to Constantine; an angel appears to him in a dream as he sleeps in his tent, the night before the great battle which will make him master of the Roman Empire, leading to his conversion. The angel bears a small Cross in his hand, a very subtle depiction of the In hoc signo vinces episode. (Piero has here done a very skillful depiction of a night scene, which most artists of the Renaissance shy away from.)
Returning to the right wall, to the right of the panel above, Constantine defeats Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, another tour-de-force of perspective, but sadly also the most damaged of the frescoes.
After the death of Christ, the wood of His Cross is buried again. According to the legend, when St Helena went to find it, some of the Jewish leaders knew where it was, but refused to tell her, so she threatened to have them burned alive. They therefore handed over to her one of their number, a man named Judas, whom she had lowered into a well and left for several days, until he agreed to reveal its location. This scene, to the left of the window at the back wall, shows him being lifted out of the well; his foot on the edge of the well is another example of Piero’s clever mastery of perspective. (This distasteful episode furnished the antiphons for Lauds, Vespers and the minor Hours of the Finding of the Cross in the pre-Tridentine Roman Breviary; the second, for example, reads “Then she ordered them all to be burned, but they, being fearful, handed over Judas, alleluja.” These were removed in Clement VIII’s revision of the Tridentine Breviary, and replaced with the antiphons of the Exaltation.)
St Helena finds the crosses of both Christ and the two thieves by digging up Mt Calvary. The Lord’s is identified by touching all three to a dead man whose funeral procession happens to be passing by; the third one raises the man back to life, at which all present adore it. (Piero is really showing off on the right with the perspective of the Cross. This panel is in the middle of the left wall.)
The Cross is stolen from the church of the Holy Sepulcher by the Persians when they take the city of Jerusalem in 614 AD. This spectacularly chaotic battle scene shows the defeat of the Persian Emperor Chosroes at the hand of the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, which took place in 627 at Nineveh. Chosroes returns in defeat to his capital, where he is murdered by his elder son and successor Siroes. The latter will sue for peace with Heraclius, who makes the return of the relics of the Cross one of the conditions for the treaty. (This panel is located lowest on the left wall, to mirror the Battle of the Milvian Bridge on the right wall.)
At the top of the left wall, Heraclius, simply dressed and barefooted, brings the relics of the Cross back into Jerusalem. As described in the Matins lessons for the Exaltation of the Cross, on approaching the city, Heraclius found himself unable to pass the gate, held back by a mysterious force. The bishop of Jerusalem then told him to imitate the poverty and humility of the King of kings by laying aside his royal robes, at which he was able to continue his way to the Holy Sepulcher. It may be guessed that this story was particularly appealing to the Franciscans who sang Mass and Office in this choir every day, and was therefore put at the top as the most “exalted” of the scenes. (Here Piero really goes to town with the funny hats!)
To the left of the window in the back wall, below the scene of Judas being lifted out of the well, is depicted the Annunciation. More than one art historian has failed to realize that this is also, obliquely, part of the Holy Cross cycle, in accord with the ancient tradition, very widely accepted in the Middle Ages and beyond, that the earthly life of Christ was a perfectly circle of years, and that the day of His Incarnation was the same as the day of His death.
He that was lifted up beyond the third heaven in Paradise, and (heard) unspeakable and divine words that it is not allowed for tongues to speak, what doth he write to the Galatians? As lovers of the Scriptures, ye have read it and known. Far be it from me to glory, he sayeth, if not in the Cross of the Lord alone, on which He suffered, and slew (our) sufferings. Therefore let us all also steadfastly embrace the Cross of the Lord as our boast, for this wood is our salvation, the weapon of peace, the unconquered sign of victory! (The oikos at Matins of the Exaltation of the Cross in the Byzantine Rite.)
As always, our thanks to everyone who sent these photos of their liturgies celebrated on the Exaltation of the Cross. The post is small, but contains a lot of different things; two relics of the True Cross, the Byzantine Rite, a new priest’s first Mass, and a recent Requiem. Our next photopost set will be for All Saints and All Souls; a reminder will be posted at the end of October. Evangelize through beauty!
St Patrick’s Church – New Orleans, Louisiana
This church has just instituted a daily Latin Mass, but has had a weekly Mass in Latin continually since 1967, one of the very few such places anywhere in the world. The new pastor, Fr Garret O’Brien, celebrated his first Mass as pastor this summer, on the feast of the Precious Blood.
St John the Baptist Greek-Catholic Church – Minneapolis, Minnesota
Divine Liturgy of the Feast
Second panel – The tree lives until the time of Solomon, when it is cut down and part of it used to make a bridge. When the Queen of Sheba comes to visit Solomon, she “sees in the Spirit that the Savior of the world will be hung upon this wood”; she therefore refuses to step on it, but kneels in adoration. She then tells Solomon that someone will be hung on that wood, by whose death the kingdom of the Jews will be destroyed; the king therefore has it buried deep in the earth. (One version of the story adds that the queen had webbed feet, which were made normal by touching the wood.)
Third panel – The pool called Probatica which is mentioned in John 5, 2 is built on the place where the wood is buried; shortly before the time of Christ’s passion, the wood floats to the surface, and is used to make a cross, the one which will become His. In the background in the upper left are seen the sick people waiting for their chance to descend into the pool.
In the fourth panel, the narration switches direction, moving from right to left. The Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, discovers three crosses buried on the site of Mt Calvary; in order to determine which one is that of Christ, a dying woman is brought to the site, and completely healed at the touch of the third one. (The basilica of the Holy Cross was officially founded on May 3, 1294, the feast of the Finding of the Cross.)
Fifth panel, uppermost on the left side of the choir – St Helena brings the relics of the Cross into the newly constructed basilica of the Anastasis, which is usually called the Holy Sepulcher in the West. (The absence of linear perspective is especially notable in the improbably crooked buildings in the background.)
