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The Holy Cross is the cross used for the Crucifixion of Jesus.

Overview

According to a wide-spread narrative, Helena, the mother of Constantine, in 325 CE discovered three crosses buried near the Golgotha. The True Cross was identified as an ill person recovered at the touch of it. Along with the cross, Helena found the Holy Nails and the Titulus Crucis. All these relics (with the exception of the Holy Nails that Helena brought to Constantinople) were displayed to the faithful in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem until the Persian invasion in 615 CE.

From this point on, the story of the Holy Cross is a complicated story of continuous losses and miraculous rediscoveries. By the time of the First Crusade, the only thing that Arnulf Malecorne, the first Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, could recover in Jerusalem was a small fragment of wood embedded in a golden cross. It became nonetheless the most sacred relic of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, housed in the Church of Holy Sepulchre and paraded ahead of the army before every battle. In 1187 the relic was captured by Saladin during the Battle of Hattin and never recovered.

Legend of the Holy Cross

Numerous legends developed in ancient Christianity about the building of the cross.

At the center of Eastern traditions was the christological interpretation of Isaiah 60:13 ("The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box [cypress] together to beautify the place of my sanctuary, and I will make the place of my feet glorious"). The cross (which is the glorious place where the feet of Jesus were nailed) was thus believed to have been made of cedar, pine and cypress. These are the holy trees of which the First and the Second Temple were also made, before the wood from these trees was removed with the Herod reconstruction and used for the making of the cross.

By the 13th century, the story of the pre-Christian origins of the cross developed in the West into an even more complex narrative, as attested in the Golden Legend by Jacopo de Voragine. The wood used to built Jesus' cross came from a tree planted by Seth on Adam's grave. The tree lived until the time of Solomon, who used its wood to built the bridge over which the Queen of Sheba passed. The wood was then buried for "fourteen generations" until it was used to make the cross.

Fragments of the Holy Cross

Despite the loss of the Jerusalem relict, fragments of the Holy Cross are said to be preserved in numerous locations. Especially after the sack of Constantinople in 1204, a flow of relics reached the West. At one point so many churches claimed to possess a piece of the True Cross, that John Calvin in his Traité des reliques is famously said to have remarked that there was enough wood in them to fill a ship. Today, the list of Churches and Monasteries who claim possession of fragments of the Holy Cross includes:

• The Koutloumousiou Monastery on Mount Athos [Greece]

• The Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris [France] -- The relic was acquired by King Louis and formerly kept in the nearby Ste. Chapelle along with the Crown of Thorns and the (now lost) Holy Lance. After being housed in the Bibliotheque Nationale during the French Revolution, in 1806 the surviving relics were moved to the current location.

• The Monastery of Santo Toribio de Liébana near Potes in Cantabria [Spain]

• The Church of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, Rome, Italy -- The church houses one of the largest and oldest collections of Relics of Jesus, which includes the Titulus Crucis, the Holy Sponge, one of the Holy Nails, fragments of the Crown of Thorns, etc.

• The Holy Cross Abbey, Tipperary, Ireland -- The relic was brought to Ireland by the Plantagenet Queen, Isabella of Angoulême, around 1233. It was last exposed for public veneration in 1632. Shortly afterward the Abbey was abandoned and felt in ruin, until it was restored as a national monument in 1866 and then partially reopen to worship in 1969. In the Fall 2011 the relict was reported to be stolen but then retrieved a few months later.

• The Church of the Holy Cross, Boston, MA -- The relic arrived in Boston in the late 18th century, a gift to a French missionary priest, the Rev. Jean-Louis Lefebvre de Cheverus, who later became the first bishop of Boston. In the Summer 2010 the relic was reported to be stolen and then recovered a few weeks later.

• The Shrine of the True Cross, Dickinson, TX -- The relic was brought here in 1936 from Rome, Italy.

• The Monasterio de Tarlac in the Philippines -- The relic was brought here in 2005 from Germany.

In Depth

• Holy Cross (sources) -- survey of ancient sources

• Holy Cross (arts) -- survey of fictional works

• Holy Cross (research) -- survey of scholarly works

External links

• Wikipedia