Chapter 15

The Procession of the Precious Cross

The Church has received and celebrates on the first of August the procession of the Precious and life-giving Cross. The Jerusalem Typikon prescribes that on the same day, after the Doxology, the procession of the Precious Cross is to be performed according to the order of the third Sunday of the Fasts. Among the Byzantines this litany was called the “proexeleusis”.[1] Concerning the ceremony of the procession of the Precious and life-giving Cross, Constantine Porphyrogennetos, in his exposition of the imperial order, in the chapter “what must be observed on the first day of the month of August, when the Precious and life-giving Cross goes forth,” describes the order of this ceremony in full detail, and says that “seven days beforehand the Precious Cross must go forth from the treasury of the Great Palace” and “…anointed with balsam, it is set forth in the Church for the veneration of all.” And on the first of the month of July it begins to go about and sanctify every place and every house of this God-protected and imperial city. But indeed, so that the very walls—as indeed the city itself and everything around it—may be filled with grace and sanctification, this continues until the thirteenth of August. For on the thirteenth of the same month it enters the sacred Palace and is placed upon the cloth that stands in the golden hall.[2] And immediately the Cross is taken up again by the Papias and censed by the protopapas of Daphne and the diakonoi, and it goes around sanctifying both the bedchambers and the entire palace. And then in this way it is deposited in the oratory of Saint Theodore. And in the morning, when Orthros is being sung—at the third or even the sixth ode— after being wiped by both the protopapas and the keeper of the vessels, it is deposited in the sacred sacristy. This ceremony was called the Procession because, after the veneration of the Precious Cross, as Porphyrogennetos describes, a litany took place throughout the city in which the Precious Cross was carried in front. This feast was instituted under Manuel Palaiologos in 1174. That the Precious and Life-giving Cross was the very cross made of precious wood and kept in the treasury is clear from the entire preceding narrative.