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According to Christian tradition, the True Cross is the real cross on which Jesus of Nazareth was crucified.
It is related by numerous historical accounts and legends that Helen, the mother of Roman emperor Constantine the Great, recovered the True Cross at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, when she travelled to the Holy Land in the years 326–328. The late fourth-century historians Gelasius of Caesarea and Tyrannius Rufinus wrote that while Helen was there, she discovered the hiding place of three crosses that were believed to have been used at the crucifixion of Jesus and the two thieves, Penitent thief and Impenitent thief, who were executed with him. To one cross was affixed the titulus bearing Jesus' name, but according to Rufinus, Helen was unsure of its legitimacy until a miracle revealed that it was the True Cross. This event is celebrated on the liturgical calendar as the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (Roodmas) by the Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, Persian, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Anglican churches.
The Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox churches, as well as denominations of the Church of the East, have all claimed to possess relics of the True Cross as objects of veneration. Historians generally dispute the authentication of the , as do Protestant and other Christian churches, who do not hold them in high regard.
The Golden Legend contains several versions of the origin of the True Cross. In The Life of Adam, Voragine writes that the True Cross came from three trees which grew from three seeds from the "Tree of Mercy" which Seth collected and planted in the mouth of Adam's corpse.
In another account contained in "Of the Invention of the Holy Cross", Voragine writes that the True Cross came from a tree that grew from part of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, "the tree that Adam ate of", that Seth planted on Adam's grave where it "endured there unto the time of King Solomon". Alternatively, it reached Solomon via Moses, who used it as the staff of Moses, and David, who planted it at Jerusalem. It was felled by Solomon to be a beam in his temple but not found suitable in the end.
After many centuries, the tree was cut down and the wood used to build a bridge over which the Queen of Sheba passed on her journey to meet Solomon. So struck was she by the omen contained in the timber of the bridge that she fell on her knees and revered it. On her visit to Solomon, she told him that a piece of wood from the bridge would bring about the replacement of Mosaic covenant with the Jewish people by a new order. Solomon, fearing the eventual destruction of his people, had the timber buried.
After fourteen generations, the wood taken from the bridge was fashioned into the Cross used to Crucifixion Jesus Christ. Voragine then goes on to describe its rediscovery by Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine.
In the Late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance, there was wide general acceptance of the account of the cross's history as presented by Voragine. This general acceptance is displayed in numerous artworks on the subject, culminating in one of the most famous fresco cycles of the Renaissance, the Legend of the True Cross by Piero della Francesca, which he painted on the walls of the chancel of the Church of San Francesco in Arezzo between 1452 and 1466, faithfully reproducing the episodes of The Golden Legend.
With the Cross were also found the Holy Nails, which Helena took with her back to Constantinople. According to Theodoret, "She had part of the cross of our Saviour conveyed to the palace. The rest was enclosed in a covering of silver, and committed to the care of the bishop of the city, whom she exhorted to preserve it carefully, in order that it might be transmitted uninjured to posterity."
Before long, but perhaps not until after the visit of Egeria, it was possible also to venerate the crown of thorns, the pillar at which Christ was scourged, and the Holy Lance that pierced his side.
Around 1009, the year in which Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Christians in Jerusalem hid part of the cross and it remained hidden until the city was taken by the European soldiers of the First Crusade. Arnulf Malecorne, the first Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, had the Greek Orthodox priests who were supposedly in possession of the Cross tortured in order to reveal its location. The relic that Arnulf recovered was a small fragment of wood embedded in a golden cross, and it became the most sacred relic of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, with none of the controversy that had followed their discovery of the Holy Lance in Antioch. Displayed in a jewel-encrusted housing of gold and silver, it was housed in a northern chapel at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, overseen by its canons and protected by its knights. A second chapel beside it was overseen by the Syrian Orthodox and displayed another reliquary holding their fragment of the cross.. The Latin fragment of the cross was repeatedly carried into battle against the Muslims.
Over the course of each liturgical calendar, the Latin patriarch would oversee mass at the various churches around Jerusalem corresponding to the part of Jesus's life being celebrated. The celebrations of Holy Week closely involved the Holy Sepulchre and its fragment of the True Cross. During lauds on each Good Friday, the Latin relic was carried across the church to the chapel of Calvary on its south side, the supposed site of Jesus's crucifixion, and then venerated by the barefoot patriarch, the sepulchre's canons, and the assembled pilgrims until sext. Prior to the liturgy on Holy Saturday, four pilgrims selected by the patriarchpreceded by a thurifer and 2 the Latin relic from its chapel to the edicule of the Holy Sepulchre while the congregation waited with unlit candles. A New Fire would "spontaneously" light within the sepulchre. The crossbearer then would light his own candle from it, transit the entire church, and light the candle of the waiting patriarch. The candles of the canons and then the congregation were then lit from one to another, gradually filling the church with light..
After King BaldwinI of Jerusalem presented King SigurdI of Norway with a splinter of the True Cross following the Norwegian Crusade in 1110, the Cross was captured by Saladin during the Battle of Hattin in 1187. While some Christian rulers like Richard the Lionheart of England, the Byzantine emperor IsaacII, and King Tamar of Georgia sought to ransom it from Saladin, the cross was not returned. In 1219 the True Cross was offered to the Knights Templar by Al-Kamil in exchange for lifting the siege of Damietta. The cross was never delivered as Al-Kamil did not, in fact, have it. Subsequently the cross disappeared from historical records. The True Cross was last seen in the city of Damascus following the Battle of Hattin.
Fragments of the Cross were broken up, and the pieces were widely distributed; in 348, in one of his Catecheses, Cyril of Jerusalem remarked that the "whole Earth is full of the relics of the Cross of Christ" and, in another, "The holy wood of the Cross bears witness, seen among us to this day, and from this place now almost filling the whole world, by means of those who in faith take portions from it." Egeria's account testifies to how highly these relics of the crucifixion were prized. John Chrysostom relates that fragments of the True Cross were kept in golden reliquaries, "which men reverently wear upon their persons." Even two Latin inscriptions around 350 from today's Algeria testify to the keeping and admiration of small particles of the cross. Around the year 455, Juvenal Patriarch of Jerusalem sent to Pope Leo I a fragment of the "precious wood", according to the Letters of Pope Leo. A portion of the cross was taken to Rome in the seventh century by Pope Sergius I, who was of Byzantine origin. "In the small part is power of the whole cross", says an inscription in the Felix Basilica of Nola, built by bishop Paulinus at the beginning of 5th century. The cross particle was inserted in the altar.
The Old English poem Dream of the Rood mentions the finding of the cross and the beginning of the tradition of the veneration of its relics. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle also talks of King Alfred receiving a fragment of the cross from Pope Marinus (see: Annal Alfred the Great, year 883). Although it is possible, the poem need not be referring to this specific relic or have this incident as the reason for its composition. However, there is a later source that speaks of a bequest made to the 'Holy Cross' at Shaftesbury Abbey in Dorset; Shaftesbury abbey was founded by King Alfred, supported with a large portion of state funds and given to the charge of his own daughter when he was aliveit is conceivable that if Alfred really received this relic, that he may have given it to the care of the nuns at Shaftesbury.Studies in the Early History of Shaftesbury Abbey. Dorset County Council, 1999
Most of the very small relics of the True Cross in Europe came from Constantinople. The city was captured and sacked by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. The Chronica Regia Coloniensis relates that "After the conquest of the city Constantinople inestimable wealth was found: incomparably precious jewels and also a part of the cross of the Lord, which Helena transferred from Jerusalem and which was decorated with gold and precious jewels. There it attained the highest admiration. It was carved up by the present bishops and was divided with other very precious relics among the knights; later, after their return to the homeland, it was donated to churches and monasteries." The French knight Robert de Clari wrote that "within this chapel were found many precious relics; for therein were found two pieces of the True Cross, as thick as a man's leg and a fathom in length."
The misplacement of which particular class relics of the Holy Cross (and others in general) belong to, either as a result of confusion or exaggeration; and the outright forgery of relics, was a recurring controversy during the Medieval Age. This happened, often in order to attract pilgrims; or even to facilitate the lucrative practice of simony.
By the end of the Middle Ages so many churches claimed to possess relics of the True Cross, that John Calvin is famously said to have remarked that there was enough wood in them to fill a ship:
Conflicting with this is the finding of Charles Rohault de Fleury, who, in his Mémoire sur les instruments de la Passion of 1870, made a study of the relics in reference to the criticisms of Calvin and Erasmus. He drew up a catalogue of all known relics of the True Cross showing that, in spite of what various authors have claimed, the fragments of the Cross brought together again would not reach one-third that of a cross which has been supposed to have been in height, with transverse branch of wide, proportions not at all abnormal. He calculated: supposing the Cross to have been of pine-wood (based on his microscopic analysis of the fragments) and giving it a weight of about seventy-five kilogrammes, we find the original volume of the cross to be . The total known volume of known relics of the True Cross, according to his catalogue, amounts to approximately (more specifically 3,942,000 cubic millimetres), leaving a volume of , almost 98%, lost, destroyed, or from which is otherwise unaccounted. Four cross particles – of ten particles with surviving documentary provenances by Byzantine emperors – from European churches, i.e. Santa Croce in Rome, Caravaca de la Cruz, Notre Dame, Paris, Pisa Cathedral and Florence Cathedral, were microscopically examined. "The pieces came all together from olive." It is possible that many alleged pieces of the True Cross are forgery, created by travelling merchants in the Middle Ages, during which period a thriving trade in manufactured relics went on.
Smyrnakis notes that the largest surviving portion, of 870,760 cubic millimetres, is preserved in the Monastery of Koutloumousiou on Mount Athos, and also mentions the preserved relics in Rome (consisting of 537,587 cubic millimetres), in Brussels (516,090 cubic millimetres), in Venice (445,582 cubic millimetres), in Ghent (436,450 cubic millimetres) and in Paris (237,731 cubic millimetres).
Santo Toribio de Liébana in Spain is also said to hold the largest of these pieces and is one of the most visited Roman Catholic pilgrimage sites. In Asia, the only place where the other part of the True Cross is located is in the Monasterio de Tarlac at San Jose, Tarlac, Philippines.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church also claims to have the right wing of the true cross buried in the monastery of Gishen Mariam. This piece was gifted by the Venetian Republic to the Ethiopian Empire in the medieval period and remained in the Atse's personal possession into the 18th century, even being lost in battle, before being buried atop Amba Geshen.E. A. Wallis Budge, A History of Ethiopia: Nubia and Abyssinia, 1928 (Oosterhout, the Netherlands: Anthropological Publications, 1970), pp. 454f.
In 2016, a relic of the True Cross held by the Waterford Cathedral in Ireland was radiocarbon-dated to the 11th century by Oxford University.
In February 2020, the Sevastopol district archpriest Sergiy Khalyuta said that a piece of the True Cross was bought by a donor, and was to be placed on board the Russian missile cruiser Moskva, which has a chapel on board. The ship sank in April 2022 during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. After the sinking, there was speculation that the fragment may have gone down with the ship.
The Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican and some Protestant churches celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross on September 14, the anniversary of the dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In later centuries, these celebrations also included commemoration of the rescue of the True Cross from the in 628. In the Galician usage, beginning about the seventh century, the Feast of the Cross was celebrated on May 3. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, when the Galician and Roman practices were combined, the September date, for which the Vatican adopted the official name "Triumph of the Cross" in 1963, was used to commemorate the rescue from the Persians and the May date was kept as the "Invention of the True Cross" to commemorate the finding. The September date is often referred to in the West as Holy Cross Day; the May date (see also Roodmas) was dropped from the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church in 1960 when the Roman Breviary was reformed by Pope John XXIII. The Orthodox still commemorate both events on September 14,. one of the Twelve Great Feasts of the liturgical year, and the Procession of the Venerable Wood of the Cross on 1 August, the day on which the relics of the True Cross would be carried through the streets of Constantinople to bless the city.
In addition to celebrations on fixed days, there are certain days of the moveable feast when the Cross is celebrated. The Catholic Church has a formal Adoration of the Cross during the services for Good Friday. In Eastern Orthodox churches everywhere, a replica of the cross is brought out in procession during Matins of Great and Holy Friday for the people to venerate. The Orthodox also celebrate an additional Veneration of the Cross on the third Sunday of Great Lent.
21st-century status
The Greek Orthodox church presents a small True Cross relic shown in the Greek Treasury within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at the foot of Golgotha. The Syriac Orthodox Church also claims a small relic of the True Cross (held in the Monastery of Saint Mark in Jerusalem), as does the Armenian Apostolic Church (in Armenia). According to the 15th-century Book of Ṭeff Grains, the emperor Dawit I received four fragments of the True Cross around the year 1400 from Coptic Christians as thanks for his protection.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church claims these relics are still held at either Egziabher Ab or Tekle Maryam, two monasteries near the former imperial cemetery on Amba Geshen.
Dispersion of relics
An inscription of 359 found at Tixter, in the neighbourhood of Sétif in Mauretania (in today Algeria), was said to mention, in an enumeration of relics, a fragment of the True Cross, according to an entry in Roman Miscellanies, X, 441.
Veneration
John Chrysostom wrote homilies on the three crosses:
Image gallery
See also
Notes
Bibliography
(1996). 9789042912878, Peeters. ISBN 9789042912878
(2025). 9783161534812, Mohr Siebeck. ISBN 9783161534812
Steven Runciman (2025). 052134770X, Cambridge University Press. 052134770X.
Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent (2025). 9780520284968, University of California Press. ISBN 9780520284968
(2025). 9789042908819, Peeters. ISBN 9789042908819
Constantin Zuckerman (2025). 9782916716459, Association des Amis du Centre d'Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance. . ISBN 9782916716459
Further reading
External links
Categories: Catholic Church In Jerusalem, Christian Folklore, Christian Mythology, Christian Relics, Christian Terminology, Christianity In Jerusalem, Crucifixion Of Jesus, Jesus And History, Relics Associated With Jesus, Individual Crosses And Crucifixes, Church Of The Holy Sepulchre, Helena, Mother Of Constantine I
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