The Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Church, and the
Church of the East all claim to possess
relics of the True Cross as objects of
veneration. Historians generally dispute the authenticity of the relics, as do
Protestant and other Christian churches, who do not hold them in high regard.[2]
Provenance
The Golden Legend
In the Latin-speaking traditions of Western Europe, the story of the pre-Christian origins of the True Cross was well established by the 13th century when, in 1260, it was recorded by
Jacobus de Voragine,
Bishop of Genoa, in the Golden Legend.[b]
The Golden Legend contains several versions of the origin of the True Cross. In The Life of Adam, Voragine writes that the True Cross came from three trees which grew from three seeds from the "Tree of Mercy" which
Seth collected and planted in the mouth of
Adam's corpse.[3]
In another account contained in "Of the Invention of the Holy Cross", Voragine writes that the True Cross came from a tree that grew from part of the
Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, "the tree that Adam ate of", that Seth planted on Adam's grave where it "endured there unto the time of
Solomon".[4][5] Alternatively, it reached Solomon via
Moses, who used it as the
staff of Moses, and
David, who planted it at Jerusalem. It was felled by Solomon to be a beam in
his temple but not found suitable in the end.[5]
After many centuries, the tree was cut down and the wood used to build a bridge over which the
Queen of Sheba passed on her journey to meet Solomon. So struck was she by the
portent contained in the timber of the bridge that she fell on her knees and revered it. On her visit to Solomon, she told him that a piece of wood from the bridge would bring about the replacement of
God's covenant with the Jewish people by a new order. Solomon, fearing the eventual destruction of his people, had the timber buried.[4][5]
After fourteen generations, the wood taken from the bridge was fashioned into the Cross used to
crucify Jesus Christ.[4][5] Voragine then goes on to describe its rediscovery by Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine.[4]
In the
Late Middle Ages and
Early Renaissance, there was wide general acceptance of the account of the cross's history as presented by Voragine. This general acceptance is displayed in numerous artworks on the subject, culminating in one of the most famous
fresco cycles of the Renaissance, the Legend of the True Cross by
Piero della Francesca, which he painted on the walls of the
chancel of the
Church of San Francesco in
Arezzo between 1452 and 1466, faithfully reproducing the episodes of The Golden Legend.
Eastern Christianity
According to the
sacred tradition of the
Eastern Orthodox Church the True Cross was made from three different types of wood:
cedar,
pine and
cypress.[6] This is an allusion to
Isaiah 60:13: "The glory of
Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box [cypress] together to beautify the place of my sanctuary, and I will make the place of my feet glorious." The link between this verse and the crucifixion lies in the words "the place of my feet", which is interpreted as referring to the footrest (
Latin: suppedāneum) on which Jesus' feet were nailed and which appears on the
Orthodox cross.[citation needed] (Compare with the Jewish concepts of the
Ark of the Covenant or the
Jerusalem Temple as being God's footstool,[7] and the prescribed
Three Pilgrimage Festivals, in Hebrew aliya la-regel, lit. ascending to the foot).[8]
Tradition of Lot's triple tree
A further tradition holds that these three trees from which the True Cross was constructed grew together in one spot. A traditional Orthodox
icon[which?] depicts
Lot, the nephew of
Abraham, watering the trees.[6] According to tradition, these trees were used to construct the
Temple in Jerusalem ("to beautify the place of my sanctuary"). Later, during
Herod'sreconstruction of the Temple, the wood from these trees was removed from the Temple and discarded, eventually being used to construct the cross on which Jesus was crucified ("and I will make the place of my feet glorious").[citation needed]
Empress Helena and the Cross
Eusebius
The Life of Constantine by
Eusebius of Caesarea (died 339) is the earliest and main historical source on the rediscovery of the
Tomb of Jesus and the construction of the first church at the site, but does not mention anything concerning the True Cross.[9] Eusebius describes how the site of the
Holy Sepulchre, once a site of veneration for the early Christian Church in
Jerusalem, had been covered over with earth and a
temple of
Venus had been built on top. Although Eusebius does not say as much, this would probably have been done as part of
Hadrian's reconstruction of Jerusalem as a new pagan city,
Aelia Capitolina, after 130, following the destruction of the formerly Jewish city at the end of the
Jewish Revolt in the year 70, and in connection with
Bar Kokhba's revolt of 132–135. Following his conversion to Christianity, Emperor
Constantine ordered in about 325–326 that the site be uncovered and instructed
Macarius, Bishop of Jerusalem, to build a church on the site. Eusebius' work contains details about the demolition of the pagan temple and the erection of the church, but does not mention anywhere the finding of the True Cross.[9]
Socrates Scholasticus
In his Ecclesiastical History, nearly a century after Eusebius,
Socrates Scholasticus (born c. 380) gives a description of the discovery later repeated by
Sozomen and
Theodoret. In it he describes how
Helena Augusta, Constantine's aged mother, had the pagan temple destroyed and the Sepulchre uncovered, whereupon three crosses, the
titulus, and the
nails from Jesus's crucifixion were uncovered as well. In Socrates's version of the story, Macarius had the three crosses placed in turn on a deathly ill woman. This woman recovered at the touch of the third cross, which was taken as a sign that this was the cross of Christ, the new Christian symbol. Socrates also reports that, having also found the cross's nails, Helena sent these to
Constantinople, where they were incorporated into the emperor's helmet and the bridle of his horse.[10]
Sozomen
In his Ecclesiastical History,
Sozomen (died c. 450) gives essentially the same version as Socrates. Without further attribution, he also adds that it was said that the location of the Sepulchre was "disclosed by a Hebrew who dwelt in the East and who derived his information from some documents which had come to him by paternal inheritance"—although Sozomen himself disputes this account—so that a dead person was also revived by the touch of the Cross.[11] Later popular versions of this story state that the Jew who assisted Helena was named Jude or Judas but later converted to Christianity and took the name
Kyriakos.
Theodoret
Theodoret (died c. 457) in his Ecclesiastical History Chapter xvii gives what would become the standard version of the finding of the True Cross:
When the empress beheld the place where the Saviour suffered, she immediately ordered the idolatrous temple, which had been there erected, to be destroyed, and the very earth on which it stood to be removed. When the tomb, which had been so long concealed, was discovered, three crosses were seen buried near the Lord's sepulchre. All held it as certain that one of these crosses was that of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that the other two were those of the thieves who were crucified with Him. Yet they could not discern to which of the three the Body of the Lord had been brought nigh, and which had received the outpouring of His precious Blood. But the wise and holy Macarius, the president of the city, resolved this question in the following manner. He caused a lady of rank, who had been long suffering from disease, to be touched by each of the crosses, with earnest prayer, and thus discerned the virtue residing in that of the Saviour. For the instant this cross was brought near the lady, it expelled the sore disease, and made her whole.
With the Cross were also found the
Holy Nails, which Helena took with her back to Constantinople. According to Theodoret, "She had part of the cross of our Saviour conveyed to the palace. The rest was enclosed in a covering of silver, and committed to the care of the bishop of the city, whom she exhorted to preserve it carefully, in order that it might be transmitted uninjured to posterity."
Syriac tradition
Another popular ancient version from the
Syriac tradition replaced Helena with a fictitious first-century empress named Protonike, who is said to be the wife of emperor
Claudius.[12] This story, which originated in Edessa in the 430s,[13] was transmitted in the so-called Doctrina Addai, which was believed to be written by
Thaddeus of Edessa (Addai in Syriac texts), one of the seventy disciples.[14] The narrative retrojected the Helena version to the first century. In the story, Protonike traveled to Jerusalem after she met
Simon Peter in Rome.[12] She was shown around the city by
James, brother of Jesus, until she discovered the cross after it healed her daughter of some illness.[12] She then converted to Christianity and had a church built on
Golgotha.[12] Aside from the Syriac tradition, the Protonike version was also cited by
Armenian sources.[15]
Catholic commemoration
According to the 1955 Roman Catholic Marian Missal, Helena went to Jerusalem to search for the True Cross and found it 14 September 320. In the 8th century, the Feast of the Finding was transferred to 3 May and 14 September became the celebration of the "
Exaltation of the Cross", the commemoration of a victory over the
Persians by the
ByzantineemperorHeraclius, as a result of which the relic was recovered and returned to Jerusalem.[16]
The True Cross in Jerusalem
Late antiquity
The silver reliquary that was left at the
Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in care of the bishop of Jerusalem was exhibited periodically to the faithful. In the 380s a nun named
Egeria who was travelling on
pilgrimage described the veneration of the True Cross at Jerusalem in a long letter known as her Itinerary (
Latin: Itinerarium Egeriae), which she sent back to her convent:
Then a chair is placed for the bishop in Golgotha behind the [liturgical] Cross, which is now standing; the bishop duly takes his seat in the chair, and a table covered with a linen cloth is placed before him; the deacons stand round the table, and a silver-gilt casket is brought in which is the holy wood of the Cross. The casket is opened and [the wood] is taken out, and both the wood of the Cross and the
title are placed upon the table. Now, when it has been put upon the table, the bishop, as he sits, holds the extremities of the sacred wood firmly in his hands, while the deacons who stand around guard it. It is guarded thus because the custom is that the people, both faithful and catechumens, come one by one and, bowing down at the table, kiss the sacred wood and pass through. And because, I know not when, some one is said to have bitten off and stolen a portion of the sacred wood, it is thus guarded by the deacons who stand around, lest any one approaching should venture to do so again. And as all the people pass by one by one, all bowing themselves, they touch the Cross and the title, first with their foreheads and then with their eyes; then they kiss the Cross and pass through, but none lays his hand upon it to touch it. When they have kissed the Cross and have passed through, a deacon stands holding the ring of Solomon and the horn from which the kings were anointed; they kiss the horn also and gaze at the ring...[17]
Before long, but perhaps not until after the visit of Egeria, it was possible also to venerate the
crown of thorns, the pillar at which Christ was scourged, and the
lance that pierced his side.
The Perso-Byzantine Wars
The
SassanidEmperorKhosrau II ("Chosroes") removed the part of the cross held in Jerusalem as a trophy after he
captured the city in 614. Thirteen years later, in 628, the
ByzantineemperorHeraclius defeated Khosrau and regained the relic from
Shahrbaraz. He placed the cross in Constantinople at first, before restoring it to Jerusalem on 21 March 630.[18] Some scholars disagree with this narrative, with
Constantin Zuckerman going as far as to suggest that the True Cross was actually lost by the Persians and that the wood contained in the allegedly still sealed reliquary brought to Jerusalem by Heraclius in 629 was a fake. In his analysis, the hoax was designed to serve the political purposes of both Heraclius and his former foe, recently turned ally and father-in-law, the Persian general and soon-king Shahrbaraz.[19]
Islamic rule and the Crusades
When Jerusalem
fell to the Muslims in 638, Heraclius retrieved the True Cross but did not attempt to retake the city.[20]
Around 1009, the year in which
Fatimid caliphAl-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the
destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Christians in Jerusalem hid part of the cross and it remained hidden until the city was taken by the European soldiers of the
First Crusade.
Arnulf Malecorne, the first
Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, had the Greek Orthodox priests who were supposedly in possession of the Cross tortured in order to reveal its location.[21] The relic that Arnulf recovered was a small fragment of wood embedded in a golden cross, and it became the most sacred relic of the
Kingdom of Jerusalem, with none of the controversy that had followed their discovery of the
Holy Lance in
Antioch. Displayed in a jewel-encrusted housing of gold and silver, it was housed in a northern chapel at the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre, overseen by its
canons and protected by its
knights. A second chapel beside it was overseen by the
Syrian Orthodox and displayed another reliquary holding their fragment of the cross.[22] The Latin fragment of the cross was repeatedly carried into battle against the Muslims.[22]
Over the course of each
liturgical calendar, the Latin patriarch would oversee mass at the various churches around Jerusalem corresponding to the part of Jesus's life being celebrated. The celebrations of
Holy Week closely involved the Holy Sepulchre and its fragment of the True Cross. During
lauds on each
Good Friday, the Latin relic was carried across the church to the chapel of
Calvary on its south side, the supposed site of Jesus's crucifixion, and then venerated by the barefoot patriarch, the sepulchre's canons, and the assembled pilgrims until
sext.[23] Prior to the liturgy on
Holy Saturday, four pilgrims selected by the patriarch—preceded by a
thurifer and 2
acolytes—carried the Latin relic from its chapel to the
edicule of the Holy Sepulchre while the congregation waited with unlit candles. A New Fire would "spontaneously" light within the sepulchre. The crossbearer then would light his own candle from it, transit the entire church, and light the candle of the waiting patriarch. The candles of the canons and then the congregation were then lit from one to another, gradually filling the church with light.[23]
After
King BaldwinI of Jerusalem presented
King SigurdI of
Norway with a splinter of the True Cross following the
Norwegian Crusade in 1110, the Cross was captured by
Saladin during the
Battle of Hattin in 1187. While some Christian rulers like
Richard the Lionheart of
England,[24] the
Byzantine emperorIsaacII, and
Queen Tamar of
Georgia sought to ransom it from Saladin,[25] the cross was not returned. In 1219 the True Cross was offered to the Knights Templar by Al-Kamil in exchange for lifting the siege of
Damietta. The cross was never delivered as Al-Kamil did not, in fact, have it. Subsequently the cross disappeared from historical records. The True Cross was last seen in the city of Damascus.[26]
21st-century status
The Greek Orthodox church presents a small True Cross relic shown in the Greek Treasury within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at the foot of
Golgotha.[27] The Syriac Orthodox Church also claims a small relic of the True Cross (held in the
Monastery of Saint Mark in Jerusalem),[citation needed] as does the
Armenian Apostolic Church (in Armenia).[28] According to the 15th-century Book of Ṭeff Grains, the
emperorDawitI received four fragments of the True Cross around the year 1400 from
Coptic Christians as thanks for his protection.[29] The
Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church claims these relics are still held at either Egziabher Ab or Tekle Maryam, two monasteries near the former imperial cemetery on
Amba Geshen.
Dispersion of relics
An inscription of 359 found at Tixter, in the neighbourhood of Sétif in
Mauretania (in today Algeria), was said to mention, in an enumeration of relics, a fragment of the True Cross, according to an entry in Roman Miscellanies, X, 441.
Fragments of the Cross were broken up, and the pieces were widely distributed; in 348, in one of his Catecheses, Cyril of Jerusalem remarked that the "whole Earth is full of the relics of the Cross of Christ" and, in another, "The holy wood of the Cross bears witness, seen among us to this day, and from this place now almost filling the whole world, by means of those who in faith take portions from it."[30] Egeria's account testifies to how highly these relics of the crucifixion were prized.
John Chrysostom relates that fragments of the True Cross were kept in golden reliquaries, "which men reverently wear upon their persons." Even two Latin inscriptions around 350 from today's Algeria testify to the keeping and admiration of small particles of the cross.[31] Around the year 455,
JuvenalPatriarch of Jerusalem sent to
Pope Leo I a fragment of the "precious wood", according to the Letters of Pope Leo. A portion of the cross was taken to Rome in the seventh century by
Pope Sergius I, who was of Byzantine origin. "In the small part is power of the whole cross", says an
inscription in the Felix
Basilica of
Nola, built by bishop Paulinus at the beginning of 5th century. The cross particle was inserted in the altar.[32]
The
Old EnglishpoemDream of the Rood mentions the finding of the cross and the beginning of the tradition of the veneration of its relics. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle also talks of King Alfred receiving a fragment of the cross from Pope Marinus (see: Annal Alfred the Great, year 883).[33] Although it is possible, the poem need not be referring to this specific relic or have this incident as the reason for its composition. However, there is a later source that speaks of a bequest made to the 'Holy Cross' at
Shaftesbury Abbey in Dorset; Shaftesbury abbey was founded by King Alfred, supported with a large portion of state funds and given to the charge of his own daughter when he was alive—it is conceivable that if Alfred really received this relic, that he may have given it to the care of the nuns at Shaftesbury.[34]
Most of the very small relics of the True Cross in Europe came from
Constantinople. The city was captured and sacked by the
Fourth Crusade in 1204. The Chronica Regia Coloniensis relates that "After the conquest of the city Constantinople inestimable wealth was found: incomparably precious jewels and also a part of the cross of the Lord, which Helena transferred from Jerusalem and [which] was decorated with gold and precious jewels. There it attained [the] highest admiration. It was carved up by the present bishops and was divided with other very precious relics among the knights; later, after their return to the homeland, it was donated to churches and monasteries."[c][d] The French knight
Robert de Clari wrote that "within this chapel were found many precious relics; for therein were found two pieces of the True Cross, as thick as a man's leg and a
fathom in length."[36]
The misplacement of which particular class relics of the Holy Cross (and others in general)
belong to, either as a result of confusion or exaggeration; and the outright
forgery of relics, was a recurring controversy during the
Medieval Age. This happened, often in order to attract
pilgrims; or even to facilitate the lucrative practice of
Simony.
By the end of the Middle Ages so many
churches claimed to possess relics of the True Cross, that
John Calvin is famously said to have remarked that there was enough wood in them to fill a ship:
There is no abbey so poor as not to have a specimen. In some places there are large fragments, as at the Holy Chapel in Paris, at Poitiers, and at Rome, where a good-sized crucifix is said to have been made of it. In brief, if all the pieces that could be found were collected together, they would make a big ship-load. Yet the Gospel testifies that a single man was able to carry it.
— Calvin, Traité Des Reliques
Conflicting with this is the finding of
Charles Rohault de Fleury, who, in his Mémoire sur les instruments de la Passion of 1870 made a study of the relics in reference to the criticisms of Calvin and
Erasmus. He drew up a catalogue of all known relics of the True Cross showing that, in spite of what various authors have claimed, the fragments of the Cross brought together again would not reach one-third that of a cross which has been supposed to have been three or four metres (9.8 or 13.1 feet) in height, with transverse branch of two metres (6.6 feet) wide, proportions not at all abnormal. He calculated: supposing the Cross to have been of pine-wood (based on his microscopic analysis of the fragments) and giving it a weight of about seventy-five kilogrammes, we find the original volume of the cross to be 0.178 cubic metres (6.286 cubic feet). The total known volume of known relics of the True Cross, according to his catalogue, amounts to approximately 0.004 cubic metres (0.141 cubic feet) (more specifically 3,942,000 cubic millimetres), leaving a volume of 0.174 m3 (6.145 cu ft), almost 98%, lost, destroyed, or from which is otherwise unaccounted.[37] Four cross particles – of ten particles with surviving documentary provenances by Byzantine emperors – from European churches, i.e.
Santa Croce in Rome,
Caravaca de la Cruz,
Notre Dame, Paris,
Pisa Cathedral and
Florence Cathedral, were microscopically examined. "The pieces came all together from olive."[38] It is possible that many alleged pieces of the True Cross are
forgeries, created by travelling merchants in the Middle Ages, during which period a thriving trade in manufactured relics went on.[citation needed]
Smyrnakis notes that the largest surviving portion, of 870,760 cubic millimetres, is preserved in the Monastery of
Koutloumousiou on
Mount Athos, and also mentions the preserved relics in
Rome (consisting of 537,587 cubic millimetres), in
Brussels (516,090 cubic millimetres), in
Venice (445,582 cubic millimetres), in
Ghent (436,450 cubic millimetres) and in
Paris (237,731 cubic millimetres).[39]
In February 2020, the
Sevastopol district archpriest Sergiy Khalyuta said that a piece of the True Cross was bought by a donor, and was to be placed on board the Russian missile cruiser
Moskva, which has a chapel on board.[43] The ship
sank in April 2022 during the
Russian invasion of Ukraine. After the sinking, there was speculation that the fragment may have gone down with the ship.[44]
An enamelled silver reliquary of the True Cross from Constantinople, c. 800
One of the largest purported fragments of the True Cross is at
Santo Toribio de Liébana in Spain (photo by F. J. Díez Martín)
Kings removing their diadems take up the cross, the symbol of their Saviour's death; on the purple, the cross; in their prayers, the cross; on their armour, the cross; on the holy table, the cross; throughout the universe, the cross. The cross shines brighter than the sun.
In addition to celebrations on fixed days, there are certain days of the
variable cycle when the Cross is celebrated. The Catholic Church has a formal Adoration of the Cross during the services for
Good Friday. In Eastern Orthodox churches everywhere, a replica of the cross is brought out in procession during
Matins of
Great and Holy Friday for the people to venerate. The Orthodox also celebrate an additional Veneration of the Cross on the third Sunday of
Great Lent.
Image gallery
Reliquary of the True Cross at
Notre Dame in Paris
^An early account of the legend of
StHelena and the rediscovery of the True Cross was presented by the
Old EnglishpoetCynewulf.[1] A detailed account of known sources for the legends is presented in Drijvers (1992).[2]
^This sense of the word "
legend" is the less common one—borrowed directly from its
Latinetymon "
legenda"—of anything which should be read, rather than a historically based myth. Compare its use for historic accounts of early leaders of the church such as
Gregory,
Jerome, and
Augustine as well as the
hagiographies which produced its more usual modern sense.
^Latin: Capta igitur urbe, divitiae repperiuntur inestimabiles, lapides preciosissime et incomparabiles, pars etiam ligni dominici, quod per Helenam de Iherosolimis translatum, auro et gemmis precioses insignitum in maxima illic veneratione habebatur, ab episcopis qui presentes aderant incisum, ab aliis preciosissimis reliquis per nobilis quosque partitur, et postea eis revertentibus ad natale solum, per ecclesias et cenobia distrbuitur. German: Nach der Eroberung der Stadt wurden unschätzbare Reichtümer gefunden, unvergleichlich kostbare Edelsteine und auch ein Teil des Kreuzes des Herrn, das, von Helena aus Jerusalem überführt und mit Gold und kostbaren Edelsteinen geschmückt, dort höchste Verehrung erfuhr. Es wurde von den anwesenden Bischöfen zerstückelt und mit anderen sehr kostbaren Reliquien unter die Ritter aufgeteilt; später, nach deren Rückkehr in die Heimat, wurde es Kirchen und Klöstern gestiftet.[35]
^See also the discussion of the relics of the True Cross on the German Wikipedia at
de:Diskussion:Kreuzerhöhung.
^This sense of the word "
invention" is the less common one—borrowed directly from its
Latinetymon "
inventiō"—of anything which has been found or come across, rather than something created entirely new.
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Frolow, A. (1961), La Relique de la Vraie Croix: Recherches sur le Développement d'un Culte (in French), Paris: Institut français d'études byzantines.
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