Cross in Blossom 108.040

The Cross in Blossom symbolizes Christ Himself who having died on the cross turned it into the source of life and immortality. The futurity came to the world owing to the Cross. That is why the Cross of the Lord is figuratively called the Tree of Life and often ornamented with flowers and leaves.

According to a legend, the wood of which the Cross was made had grown from the Adamic wreath that he had twined before his death.  Twigs for it had been brought by Adam’s son Seth who took them from the paradisal Tree, on account of which the forefather had been in former times banished from Heaven. Later the wreath sprouted on Adam’s grave and turned into a mighty tree. Over the years a beam was adzed of it that fetched up at King Solomon who could not find a use for it in the Temple of Jerusalem under construction. The Queen of Sheba prophesied that a descendant of Solomon – the Israelite promised Messiah would be executed on those beam. Being scared Solomon ordered the beam being sank in the Pool of Siloam where it remained till the time of Christ. When the decision was taken to crucify Christ the Hebrews took the aged and heavy Beam, and made Jesus drag it to Golgotha. After the Saviour Resurrection was known about, the Beam was buried deeply for the believers having no chance to worship it. In the reign of Constantine, the first Christian Emperor, his mother St. Helena held a real inquiry in disclosure of the sacred object. After much searching and interrogating one of the Hebrews confessed where the Cross of the Lord had been buried. But three crosses were found there at once (as two thieves were crucified beside the Saviour). Only a miracle could help to determine which of the crosses was holy. At that moment a funeral procession passed by. The Empress and the Patriarch Macarius commanded the crosses being laid in turn on the deceased. At a touch of the Cross of the Lord the deceased resurrected all of a sudden. The crowd could not have a view of the Vivifying Beam. Then Macarius got up on a rising ground, lifted the Cross full-length, and showed it to people.

Since then a peculiar feast had been established – the Triumph of the Holy Cross; September  27 (14).