Holy Cross Day

September 14 is one of the most important and solemn church feasts. On Holy Cross Day the church makes a pilgrimage to the Holy Honest Christ. The feast marks the transition to the autumn- winter season. On that day the day and the night “cross” – their continuance becomes equal. A strict fast is kept. On September 14 autumn ploughing and sowing start. The legend of this feast returns us to the times when the Christians did not possess Jesus’ cross. In 312 Constantine the Great started with his armies for Rome to liberate the capital from the power of the tyrant Maxentius. The Emperor’s army was far inferior and he prayed God for help. In the night the emperor saw with his own eyes a fiery cross in the sky with the inscription: “In hoc signo vinces” – “By this sign shalt thou conquer”. This prediction turned him to the Christianity and he made the Cross his blazon, profession of Christianity was permitted and the persecutions of the Christians ceased. A few years later queen Helena, Constantine the Great’s mother, went to Palestine willing to find the Holy Cross. Following the instructions of an old Jew, they started digging and found the three Crosses in 326. She built then the Church of the Holy Sepulchre over them, which was consecrated on September 14, 335.