Instruction for the Day of the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord

We venerate Your Cross, O Master, and we glorify Your holy resurrection (Troparion of the Holy Cross).

The Cross of the Lord is exalted! How many important memories, sorrowful, fearsome, and yet joyful, are awakened in our souls at the sight of the exalted Cross of Christ, at the mere sight of the Cross! On it the God-man was crucified, the only-begotten Son of God, who willed by His sufferings and death on the cross to redeem the human race from eternal torment; it was stained with His most pure blood, one single drop of which is the cleansing of the world! For three hundred years it was hidden in the earth; for three hundred years the Church of God, those who believed in the Lord, lived beneath the fearsome cross of persecution; for three hundred years the earth was flooded with the blood of Christians: they were crucified on crosses, and often, too, head downward, cut, burned, drowned in whole crowds, torn limb from limb. Swords were blunted and the executioners’ arms grew weary—so many heads, hands, and feet, so many various Christian limbs, did they have to cut off. Such is how Satan armed himself against the Church of Christ, purchased by the blood of Christ! The shameful and fearsome death of Christ on the cross was, as it were, the forerunner and the sign of the death of His faithful servants. O fearsome mystery of the Cross! O all-ruinous sin, which brought down to earth the very Son of God, that He might become incarnate and suffer in His own flesh for us! O unchanging, eternal justice of God, which demanded so fearsome a sacrifice for the sins of the world! Glory to You, most righteous Master, who punishes sin and shows mercy to repentant sinners! And so—repentance, and again repentance! Let no one delay in a single sin! Bring at once a fervent repentance, that you may incline to mercy the merciful God, and not perish in your sins!

Three hundred years of persecution passed—and the persecutions ended. There appeared on the imperial throne of Rome the pious emperor Constantine, together with his mother Helen; he shows favor to the Christians, himself accepts the Christian faith, earnestly venerates the Crucified One, and not only permits, but commands all—both the clergy and his own senate, the army and the people—to bow down reverently to Christ. Temples arose, praise and thanksgiving rose to the heavens. The Empress Helen resolved to find the Cross of the Lord in Jerusalem, and it was solemnly raised up from the earth, exalted, and—oh joy! The Life-Giving Cross raises up the dead, for soon after its discovery, laid upon a dead man, the Cross brought him to life; it heals the sick, drives out demons; a sick woman was healed by its being laid upon her. For who was raised up upon the Cross? The very King of glory, the very Creator of heaven and earth, the only-begotten Son of God. For whom? For the sinful world, and for you and me; though we did not yet exist then, the Lord knew that we too would come to be, and what wretched sinners we would be, and therefore He suffered for all of us as well; much, much bitterness have we too poured into the cup of His sufferings. A wondrous marvel! The King of righteousness, God almighty, having taken human flesh upon Himself, endured execution for us, for our transgressions! And what execution? The most shameful, the most agonizing! O fearsome mystery! O mystery that draws forth tears of contrition and thanksgiving! For how can one not be horrified at the sight of the execution, not of a criminal, but of the greatest of the Righteous, meek, humble, without malice, merciful, who did countless good deeds to men and committed not a single evil? Not without cause did the sun grow dark, the earth shake, the veil of the temple be torn, the rocks split, the tombs open, the dead rise! All unfeeling nature shuddered and suffered together with the Creator of all things. But the stony-hearted Jews did not suffer with Him! And the frivolous crowd, walking about the cross, cried out, saying: You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days! save Yourself. If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross (Mt 27:39-40).

O most precious Redeemer of the whole world! The people did not know that upon You lay the weight of the sins of the whole world—that You, innocent and sinless, were suffering execution for us! They did not know that God Himself was entering into battle with hell and crushing its power, and wished to bring out from hell the souls held from the beginning of the age in its chains, and would deliver us too from its fearsome tyranny! O how precious to God are human souls, redeemed by the blood of His Son! How precious are the souls nourished by His flesh and blood! O what blessedness it is to partake of the most pure body and blood of the Lord and God and Savior of us all, Jesus Christ! O how fearsome and ruinous is sin, for the cleansing and blotting out of which the death of the Son of God was needed—and death on the cross! O how certain is the eternal punishment prepared for the unrepentant! For if this is what was done with the green tree—Jesus Christ—what will be done with the dry and fruitless one? How unfortunate are sinners, who in their blindness do not know the full ruinousness of sin! How fearsome is hell, the outer darkness and the gnashing of teeth, the Tartarus of the abyss, torments with demons!

Brothers! let us repent without delay, let us hate sin, let us love righteousness, let us cling with heart and lips to the Cross of the Lord, and let us cry out earnestly: Lord! who suffered for us and poured out Your most pure blood, and died on the Cross, by such judgments as You know, turn us all onto the path of salvation, and save us! Amen.