Augustine Sokolovski
On March 19 (6), the Orthodox Church commemorates the discovery of the Holy Cross and nails by Saint Helen in Jerusalem. This is a barely noticeable celebration, which is not mentioned in liturgical texts. However, the significance of this event is very great.
This year marks one thousand seven hundred years since the First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea (325). The Ecumenical Council is a meeting of the episcopate of local churches located on the territory of the Roman Empire. Since Christianity in the Roman Empire was persecuted before Emperor Constantine signed the Edict of Milan in the year 313, holding an Ecumenical Council was impossible.
The First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea took place in 325. The dogmatic definition stated that the Son of God, who became Man in Christ Jesus, was not created, but was begotten of God, and is consubstantial with the Father. The Council Fathers, and most importantly, its Orthodox contemporaries, thought that it had solved all dogmatic problems and that it would be the first and the last in history.
The Council of Nicaea formulated the Creed. Among other things, it states that the Lord Jesus "was incarnate, became a man, suffered, and rose again on the third day." Neither the Crucifixion nor the Cross are mentioned in the Nicaean Creed. Why is this so? Because the death penalty by crucifixion continued to be practiced in the Roman Empire. Christians knew that Jesus was crucified on the Cross, but for outsiders, for Jews and pagans, they preferred not to mention the Cross.
Perhaps history would have continued this way. But God judged otherwise. The Ecumenical Council was convened by Emperor Constantine. The Orthodox Church calls him "equal to the apostles." But, like all people on earth, he was just a man, with his own virtues and shortcomings. Constantine's mother, Helen, who is said to have taught her son the Orthodox faith, chose to live far away from him and went to Palestine.
Arriving in the Holy Land, Helen was shocked to see that Jerusalem at that time was an ordinary Roman pagan city. At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was the abomination of desolation (cf. Matthew 24:15), and there were idols all around. Then Helen herself began to literally clear the holy place, which pagan madness and human oblivion had turned into a garbage dump. Thus, the Cross of Christ and the nails with which the Savior of the World was nailed to the tree were found.
This was in 326, and in a year, if we live long enough, we will celebrate the 1700th anniversary of this event. The discovery of the Cross occurred a year after the Council of Nicaea. Church tradition calls this fateful event the pilgrimage of Saint Helen to Palestine.
The following Creed, which was formulated at the Second Ecumenical Council in Constantinople (381) and was first read at the Fourth Council in Chalcedon in 451, mentions both the Crucifixion and the Cross. We constantly read and sing this Creed during the service.
“We believe in the Lord Jesus, crucified for us under Pontius Pilate,” the confession says. The Church Father Ambrose of Milan (340-397) preached that the Creed should be read at times when a person is afraid. Incidentally, it was Ambrose who wrote that Constantine was taught the Orthodox faith by his mother Helen.
The celebration of the uncovering of the Cross by Saint Helen falls during Lent. The third Sunday of Lent is called the Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross. This Sunday of the Holy Cross is the most closely related to the finding of the Cross. It is the middle of the forty days of the first part of the Great Lent.
"We worship Thy Cross, O Master, and we glorify Thy holy Resurrection," is sung in the main hymn of this day and the entire Week of the Veneration of the Cross. The hymn "To Thy Cross", this genuine anthem to the One Crucified for Us and Risen, is a genuine doxology of angels and people. In the liturgy of Sunday and the period of the Veneration of the Cross, it replaces the Trisagion Hymn.
We are called to thank God for His ways in history. Without the Holy Cross, the history of the world and our personal history would be completely different. We thank God for this His genuine dogmatic transfiguration, which, having begun at the Council of Nicaea, rushed to its fulfillment in the finding of the Cross by Saint Helen. The joy of Queen Helen upon finding the Cross is mentioned in the blessing of the sacrament of marriage. "May that joy come upon them which blessed Helen experienced when she found the Holy Cross," the rite says.
"Children, keep yourselves from idols," St John calls in his Epistle (1 John 5:21). In the last times, Orthodox Christians are commanded to follow the Fathers of the Council of Nicaea in dogmatic faith, and to imitate Saint Helen in the moral direction of deeds and thoughts, joys and sorrows. Confessing the Holy Cross of the Lord Jesus, we must cleanse our souls from the garbage into which we have turned them. Let us ask God to purify our hearts from idols.