Читаю в твитере многих интересных людей, но отслеживать и читать последовательные треды очень неудобно. Вот опять Джордж Демакопулос написал много интересного, я решил свести его твиты в единый блог-пост с помощью сервиса Spooler. Результат надо самому дробить на абзацы, но в целом инструмент полезный.

A thread by George Demacopoulos

Tomorrow, the #OrthodoxChurch commemorates the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The earliest commemorations of the Cross occurred on Good Friday, so when and why did it move to September 14th? Here is an account:

The origins of the Feast of the Holy Cross lie in Jerusalem. During the late fourth century, after the legalization of Christianity, Christians built a large church on Golgatha, at the site where they believed Christ had been crucified. That Church, which was dedicated to the Holy Cross, was officially opened on September 14th. Thus, for several hundred years, the Christians of Jerusalem had two dates in which they commemorated the Cross — Good Friday and the anniversary of the opening of this specific church.

As a bit of a side note, it is worth mentioning that even though early Christians had a robust theology of the Cross, the Cross was not a common physical symbol for Christians before the fourth century. The Cross became a popular symbol of Christian identity, in large part, because it was adopted by the Roman empire as an imperial symbol. The emperor Constantine developed a battle standard that was inspired by the cross shape.

For several hundred years, the commemoration of the Holy Cross on September 14 remained localized to Jerusalem and the parish on Golgotha. In the early seventh century, during a protracted war b/w the Romans and Persians, the city of Jerusalem was conquered and looted by a Persian army. The Persians confiscated the relic of the true Cross and took it with them to Persia. The Persian king was eventually murdered by his son, the son in turn pursued peace with the Romans and, as part of the truce, he returned the relic of the Cross to Jerusalem.

With the true Cross returned to Jerusalem, the Feast of the Holy Cross on September 14th was retooled to commemorate 3 things:

• (a) the finding of the Cross by St. Helen
• (b) the construction of the Church on Golgotha,
• (c) the return of the relic of the true Cross to Jerusalem.

The emperor Heraklius was likely responsible for transforming the local celebration of Sept. 14 into an empire-wide commemoration. Nevertheless, he was a rather problematic figure in the eyes of the Church – he was also responsible for promoting the heresy of monothelitism. It is possible that he promoted the Feast of the Cross to over-compensate for the fact that it has been seized due to his own military failures. Only a few years later, Heraklius lost Jerusalem once again, this time by the Arabs, and it would never again be in the control of the Byzantine army. It was in this context, the permanent loss of the city of Jerusalem, that Byzantine hymnographers developed the set of hymns most commonly associated with the Exhalation of the Holy Cross, such as “Soson Kyrie.” If you want to understand why a hymn dedicated to the Feast of the Cross, like Soson Kyrie, would ask God to “grant victory to the emperor against the barbarians,” it lies in the political/historical intersection b/w the Cross and the Roman govt. in the early 7th century.