The Commemorations of the Holy Cross in the Byzantine Liturgical Year

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.

[2] ibid., 564.

[3] Typicon, arranged Archpriest David Petras, (Pittsburgh: Byzantine Seminary Press, 2024), 61.

[4] The Typikon Decoded, Archbishop Job (Getcha), trans Paul Meyendorff, (Yonkers: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press: 2012), 191.

[5] The Great Horologion, 604.

[6] A Byzantine Rite Liturgical Year, Julian J. Katrij, OSMB (Detroit: Basilian Fathers Publication, 1983), 111.

[7] Typicon, 72.

[8] Cf. The Typikon Decoded, 193.

The Holy Sepulchre of Görlitz

Last Sunday, I made an excursion to the lovely town of Görlitz in the last bit of Silesia that has remained German. While it is a city altogether worth visiting, it has one unique monument which should be of special interest to NLM readers. This is the Holy Sepulchre. It was built around 1500, as a copy of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, where its donor, the Görlitz merchant Georg Emmerich, had been on pilgrimage in 1465 (which is a fascinating story of its own). It is an almost exact copy (with slight modifications, which will be described below) of the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre as it was at that time, and had been since 1099. As the Jerusalem original was first much changed at the restorations of 1555, and then exteriorly destroyed at the fire of 1808, the Görlitz chapel is thought to be the best extant example of what the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre had looked like since the times of the crusaders. The Holy Sepulchre is part of a larger layout which inlcudes a chapel of the Cross, a Mount of Olives garden and a Via Crucis from the main church of Görlitz. All this has to be seen in the context of late medieval spirituality, for which it was paramount to relive as closely and as visually as possible, the Passion of the Lord.

Upon entering the compound, one first comes to the chapel of the Cross (built in stages from about 1482 and dedicated in 1504; all pictures were taken by me, which explains their rather poor quality):

While this is not an exact copy of Calvary in Jerusalem, its interior arrangement mimicks its main features and is meant to represent it spiritually. It is divided into two chapels, one above the other. The lower one, which is entered through the front door on the ground level, is the chapel of Adam, symbolising the burial site of Adam which tradition says was on Calvary:



The artificial split in the wall behind the altar leads up the Golgatha chapel above and corresponds to the crack in the rock in Jerusalem, which was caused by the earthquake at the death of the Saviour, which is underlined by the - unfortunately fragmentary - inscription of the altar of the chapel of Adam: "And behold the veil of the temple was rent" (Mt 27, 51, which continues "in two from the top even to the bottom, and the earth quaked, and the rocks were rent."). Here in the chapel of Adam Masses for the departed were read (by an altarist); in this context it is interesting that the site where the Görlitz chapel was built was a burial ground for unbaptised children and executed convicts.

By the little stairway on the left of the chapel, one enters the Golgatha chapel above:



In the following picture we see two of the three holes in the ground which represent the holes for the posts of the crosses of the Lord and the two thieves. In front of the Lord's Cross, "INRI" has been carved in the ground. To the right of it, there is a drain in the ground, the "Blood drain", which is connected to the artificial crack in the chapel below. It symbolizes again the crack in the rock at Calvary where the Precious Blood run, and was used as a piscina at Masses celebrated at the altar to the left. Thus it gave a tangible expression to the graces of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass flowing to the souls of the departed. The altar, which like at Golgatha is in the corner, originally had a relic of the True Cross in its sepulchrum.



Later, after the Reformation, when people still came to visit, but the living tradition had been disrupted, they thought the altar was meant to be table upon which the soldiers had rolled the dice for the Lord's tunic, and so in place of the relic of the Cross which had been destroyed, they put three dice in the sepulchrum. As you can see in this picture, they began writing their names upon the altar:



Now for the Holy Sepulchre proper. As mentioned, it is a fairly exact copy of the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem of that time, in precisely the same distance from the chapel of the Cross.



In front of the chapel you see a big stone, which represent the stone which sealed the grave. One difference concerns the arches of the dome superstructure, which are pointed rather than round. Another is the entrance, which has late Gothic characteristics. The two rectangular slabs upon the roof with ointment vessels upon them are actually misinterpretations of an engraving depicting balusters:





Above the entrance you see again inscriptions. One of them is, as you can see, from 1522, although the Reformation was only introduced in 1525.



The interior is very narrow and therefore difficult to photograph. To the right is the stone on which the Angel announced the Resurrection with a baroque statue, and on the left is the door - only to be passed kneeling - to the burial chamber itself.



I am happy to say that the medieval tradition has been resumed by the Protestant parish, and the Via Crucis procession is held every year on Good Friday. This is how it goes (obviously from end to beginning, since we have started at Golgatha). It runs through this wonderful little street; in the background you can already see the main church of Görlitz, St. Peter's, where the Via Crucis begins:



Before the Reformation there were wayside shrines for the stations. The last to survive is this one; the name of the baker's alludes to this, and the baker takes part in the procession:



Now the way goes up this street:



past some beautiful portals:





and arrives at St. Peter's, where the procession begins. The entrance which we see here is therefore called the House of Pilate - like in Jerusalem, 1000 steps from Golgatha.



Some pictures of the interior of what is the largest Gothic hall church of Saxony:



The original Catholic interior, including 32 altars, was destroyed by a fire in the 17th Century, which entered through the "eye of heaven", an opening in the ceiling, thorugh which before the reformation a statue of the Lord was pulled up on Ascension, and a dove was let down on Pentecost. You can see it in this picture, surrounded by Seraphim:



The church also has a phantastic organ from 1703 by Eugenio Casparini (Eugen Caspar):



Lastly, and what might surprise many of you, it has three baroque confessionals. Confession was practiced by Lutherans before participating in the Lord's Supper well into the 19th Century. This is the confessional of the archdeacon (note the putti holding the keys):



And the confessional of the subdeacon:



To conclude, a nice view of the church and part of the beautiful town from the other side of the River Neisse:

Dominican Rite Lent III: Good Friday

Among the most famous ceremonies of Holy Week in the pre-1970 Roman Rite was the vigil service known as Tenebrae ("Shadows"). In the Dominican Rite, although it had been previously been "anticipated" and celebrated in the evening, by the late 1950s, we had restored Tenebrae to its medieval position, early morning. It consisted of Matins, with its nine psalms, and Laudes, with its four psalms, Old Testament canticle, and Gospel Canticle (the Benedictus). This made a total of 15 psalms and canticles. As the psalms of the Office were sung, a candle was snuffed for each psalm or canticle. In this picture you can see the great fifteen-candle "hearse" in use on Good Friday morning in 1958 at St. Albert the Great Priory in Oakland CA. A lay brother in cappa is snuffing the candle of the seventh psalm of Matins, which is the first psalm of the third nocturn.

The readings of the first nocturn of Tenebrae are from the Lamentations of Jeremiah and have, in our rite, a special and distinctive "funereal" chant. We also have a special, very elaborate chant for the Oratio Jeremiae, the "Prayer of Jeremiah," which was, and may still may be, sung at the service on Holy Saturday. The rituals of Tenebrae are well known to our readers, so I will restrict myself to mentioning only a few Dominican variants: we do not have a special ritual for the 15th or "Jesus" candle, it is neither left burning or hidden. We simply snuff it. And the famous "clamor" made by pounding on the choir stalls with books or other objects is not done. There was great variety in the medieval rite of Tenebrae, and our Office is typical of our Rite in its sobriety of symbols. I understand that in some places the Jesus Candle and the Clamor had been introduced into the Domincian service, but they are not in the Ceremoniale and we never had them in the Western Province. In contrast, however, we have a complex series of invocations and responses in place of the Preces on these days, which can still be used with the Liturgy of the Hours today.

The Dominican rite for Good Friday begins by the sacristan dressing the altar with a cloth and two candles. A cantor then chanted the prophecy from Hosea 6, during which the ministers entered and prostrated before the altar steps, as you can see in this photo. The priest is Fr. Blaise Shauer, O.P. (R.I.P), a well-known liturgist of the Western Province, who was substituting for the elderly prior, Fr. William Lewis, O.P. You can see that the ministers wear albs with black stoles and maniples. The choir sings the Tract from Habacuc 3, after which, the priest ascends to the altar to sing the Collect. After the subdeacon sings the lesson from Exodus 12, and the choir the Tract from Psalm 139 [140], three deacons sing the Passion from John's Gospel. Our melody for this differs from the Roman, especially for the section treating the Deposition from the Cross and Burial of Our Lord where we use the "funereal" tone of the Lamentations at Tenebrae. The Passion is followed by the Great Intercessions, which differ from those of the 1962 Roman Rite only in occasional choice of words.

Perhaps the most famous part of the Dominican Good Friday rite is the ceremony for the Veneration of the Cross. As the Intercessions end, two priests and two deacons (in alb, stole, and maniple) arrange themselves before the altar. The deacons will sing the Agios after each of the "Reproaches." The priests take up a covered cross from the altar on its Epistle side during the first Reproach and hold it up. The deacons and choir sing the antiphonally the Agios. The whole community and the ministers genuflect three times, once during each Agios. The Agios is then sung again in Latin, and the same three genuflections are made. This veneration ceremony is also repeated after both the second and third Reproaches. At each Reproach, the cross priests move the veiled cross a step closer to the center of the altar, until it is in the center at the last Agios. By the 1950s, however, in many places, this procession with the cross was restored to its original form. Beginning in the back of the choir (or parish church) the priests brought the cross up by three stages to the altar, a variant that made the procession of the cross more dramatic.

The prior or celebrant then went to up to the priests holding the still covered cross, took it, unveiled it, and turned to display it to the community. He then sang the antiphon Ecce lignum Crucis, in quo salus mundi pepéndit: veníte adorémus, during which all genuflected. As the cantor repeated the antiphon all rose. The prior then gave the cross to the two deacons who had sung the Agios, who then reclined on the steps of the altar holding it between them. The community removed their shoes and, in order of religion, came in procession, two by two, up the aisle of the choir to the cross, stopping to genuflect at the two places where the cross had been at each Agios. Finally, at the altar steps, each genuflected and prostrated on the floor to kiss the cross held by the two reclining priests. In this photo you can see the celebrant, Fr. Blaise Shauer, O.P., venerating the cross held by Fr. Eugene Sousa, O.P., one of the deacons of the cross. The other has his back to us.

This ceremony was choreographed so that each set of three pairs of friars in medio chori genuflected and moved at the same time. A series of antiphons and the hymn Crux Fidelis were sung during this rite. When the last of the friars had venerated, the prior took up the cross, mounted the altar steps, displayed it to the community and sang the antiphon Christus triumphávit, et mors mortem superávit in ætérnum. He then sang the collect Respice while holding the cross. After he had placed it in a suitable place (usually the altar), the veneration ceremony ended. I will not describe the Communion Rite of Good Friday as, after our reform of Holy Week in 1956, it was virtually identical to Pius XII's reformed Communion service.

This completes the series on Dominican Lent

As one commenter as already mentioned, I should note that the rite of veneration described above can be used by Dominicans with the Novus Ordo service as explained in the 1985 Proprium Ordinis Praedicatorum 2: Missale et Lectionarium. We have used this ceremony each year at our university parish in Charlottesville VA where I live. The people find it very impressive. Also, various elements of Tenebrae may also be used with the new Liturgy of the Hours as explained in the 1982 Proprium Ordinis Praedicatorum 1: Liturgia Horarum.