PROCESSION OF THE LIFE GIVING CROSS OF THE LORD

The Orthodox liturgical calendar knows four feasts in honor of the Holy Cross, which are roughly distributed throughout the year. In the autumn, it is the Exaltation of the Cross; in the winter, it is the Sunday of the Holy Cross during Great Lent; in the spring, it is the discovery of the historical Holy Cross by St. Helena in Jerusalem; and finally, in the summer, it is the Procession of the Honorable Wood. How many different meanings are hidden in the seemingly forgotten feast of the Procession of the Cross and what is its medieval and, at the same time, postmodern uniqueness?

1 The Procession of the Holy Cross is one of the “Constantinopolitan Feasts” of the Russian Church. This is the name given to liturgical commemorations that date back to historical events in the Byzantine capital. Historical Russia was baptized by the Church of Constantinople. In 988, Grand Prince Vladimir of Kiev, after being baptized in Crimea, began baptizing his people. In 1038, the Metropolis of the Russian Church was established within the Ecumenical Patriarchate, as the Church of Constantinople was called in the Middle Ages. In 1439, the Church of Constantinople restored its unity with the Roman Catholic Church at the Council of the Latin Church in Florence. This event went down in history as the Union of Florence and Ferraro between Orthodox and Catholic Churches.

2 At the behest of the Grand Prince of Moscow, Vasily II the Blind (1425–1452), the Russian Church did not recognize this union. The Russian Metropolitan Isidore, a Greek participant in the Council of Florence, was deposed and fled. The new head of the Russian Church, Metropolitan Jonah, was independently elected by the Russian bishops. However, the independence of the local Church is not identical with the independence of one state from another. Previously, the Russian Church had always been part of the Church of Constantinople. It therefore adopted the liturgical feasts of Constantinople and continued to celebrate them. Historians still debate whether they were all celebrated in Constantinople itself. However, the Russian Church, the obedient daughter of its mother Church, celebrated them. Most of them have survived to this day. Each of these feasts is a valuable source of historical information and spiritual life. It is noteworthy that it is the Russian Church that celebrates events and restores meanings forgotten by the Greek Orthodox Churches that founded them.

2 The Feast of the Procession of the Cross is not one of the Twelve High Feasts. However, it includes a pre-feast that lasts only one day. In the language of the writer Andrei Platonov (1899–1951), in whose children’s stories even flowers have parents, children, and grandchildren, the Feast of the Holy Cross in August has a sister feast in spring. On March 19, the Orthodox Church commemorates the discovery of the Holy Cross by Saint Helena in Jerusalem in 326. Many fragments of this historic cross, on which Jesus was crucified, have since been scattered throughout the world. One of these was kept in Constantinople. This small fragment of the Holy Cross was the focus of the Procession celebration.

3 The second half of the summer was marked by exceptional heat and, as a result, epidemics in the Byzantine capital. To protect against all evil, the Holy Cross was carried through the streets of the city. The faithful were aware that it was not the people who carried the cross in the holy procession, but the cross that preceded and guided all those praying.

4 In the Orthodox liturgy, the Cross of Christ is often referred to as a person. This is explained not only by the special poetic form of the liturgical texts, but also by the obvious fact that, from the perspective of Orthodox dogmatics, the Holy Cross is one of the names of the Lord Jesus.

5 The Russian Church adheres to the Julian calendar. Thus, August 1, the day on which the Holy Cross was brought out in Constantinople, falls on the 14th of the month. On this day, the Orthodox Church also celebrates the memory of the holy martyrs Maccabees, who suffered in 166–167 BC for observing the divine law against the pagans. The fast before the Assumption of the Virgin Mary also begins on this day. Furthermore, the Russian Church celebrates a completely forgotten holiday on this day, the “All-Merciful Savior.” Often confused with the Feast of the Procession of the Cross, it is a separate feast associated both with the Church of Constantinople and with the activities of the pre-Mongol Russian prince Andrei Bogolyubsky. The day of Procession was once considered the historic day of the Baptism of Russia. Today, the Baptism of the Russian people is symbolically celebrated on the feast day of St. Vladimir, July 28th—by an incredible coincidence, the day the First World War began. In remembrance of this ancient significance of the Feast, which is connected to baptism, communities traditionally celebrate the blessing of water. The blessing of the new honey harvest is also solemnly celebrated. This is why, in popular piety, the Feast of the Holy Cross has the wonderful name of “Honey Savior.”

6. It is such a small, seemingly forgotten feast, but how many meanings it contains! Let us list them:

1. The procession of the Cross against diseases in Constantinople.

2. The veneration of the relic of the Holy Cross kept in St. Sophia Cathedral in the Byzantine capital.

3. The feast of the Maccabean martyrs.

4. A sister feast to the commemoration of the finding of the Holy Cross by St. Helena, celebrated in March.

5. The celebration in honor of the Merciful Savior and the Theotokos.

6. The memory of the historic date of the beginning of the Baptism of Russia in 988.

7. The blessing of water in parishes.

8. The beginning of the Dormition Fast.

9. Finally, the blessing of the new honey harvest, which, according to the wonderful tradition of popular piety, “renames” the feast “Honey Savior.”

7 “Hand in hand, never alone again. Come. Hand in hand, not a backward glance,” sings Till Lindemann in his song “Army of the Sad.” The ancient Orthodox feast of the Holy Cross in mid-August contains nine feasts in one. The number nine is a symbol of the angelic world and the diversity of holiness. Nine meanings are present in one holiday, and to them is added the name: “Honey Feast of the Savior”. This sounds extremely beautiful not only in the medieval perspective of piety, but also in the paradoxical reading of the orthodox tradition from the point of view of the aesthetic point of view of postmodernism. Isn’t that good news for all those who are sad or feel lonely?