The Cross of the Lord is a sign of victory over death and the powers of hell. It is the royal banner of Christ God, which precedes His glorious appearance in the Holy Resurrection.

The Holy Forty Days (Great Lent) is a time of spiritual endeavor, prayer, repentance, and bodily abstinence. In order to support the faithful, the Holy Church has established veneration of the Cross in the middle of the Fast, just as travelers wearied on their journey receive rest beneath the shade of the life‑giving tree.

“The Cross is the guardian of the whole universe,
The cross is the beauty of the Church,
The Cross is the sceptre of kings,
The Cross is the strength of the faithful,
The cross is the glory of angels,
and the scourge of demons.”

Thus one of the Church hymns explains the significance of the Cross for the entire world.

The Cross serves as a reminder of the Savior’s sufferings. On the one hand, it is intended to strengthen the faithful in completing the challenging course of Great Lent; on the other hand, it reminds us that each of us has our salvific cross which we are called to bear, according to the words of Venerable Anatoly of Optina:

“…to each one is given his own Gospel cross for salvation,
And it has grown in the soil of our hearts,
And by this cross alone can we be saved…”

The image of the Cross tells us that our entire life is the carrying of our own cross, and that ahead lies the Passion Week, which the Fast is leading us toward.

An important feature of the service for the Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross is the solemn bringing out of the Cross for veneration, which takes place at the end of the Great Doxology during Matins. The Cross remains in the centre of the church for the faithful to venerate until Friday of the fourth week of Great Lent. At the Divine Liturgy, in place of the hymn “Holy God,” the hymn “We bow down before Your Cross, O Master, and we glorify Your Holy Resurrection” is sung.

At the festal Matins, after the sixth ode of the Canon, according to the Lenten Triodion, a Synaxarion is read. The Synaxaria are teachings that reveal the spiritual meaning of the event being celebrated. In present practice, Synaxaria have nearly fallen into disuse, because they are written in Church Slavonic and are in prose form, making them difficult to perceive when heard. Nonetheless, they contain many profound and interesting images and thoughts.

We offer here a translation from the Church Slavonic language:

Synaxarion for the Third Sunday of Great Lent

“Let all the earth bow down before the Cross,
Through which it has understood the words concerning the worship of You.”

On this day, the Third Sunday of the Fast, we celebrate the veneration of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross for the following reasons:
Since during the forty-day Fast we, in a certain sense, are also crucified—putting the passions to death—and feel the bitterness of discouragement and weariness, the Precious and Life-Giving Cross is placed before us, providing refreshment and strengthening, reminding us of the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ and comforting us: if our God was crucified for our sake, how much more should we do for Him? It lightens our labours by presenting us with the remembrance of the Master’s sufferings and with the hope of the glory of the Cross. For just as our Savior, having ascended the Cross, was glorified through reproach and affliction, so it is fitting for us to act likewise in order to be glorified with Him if ever we suffer anything sorrowful.

In other words, like travellers covering a long and difficult road who become weary, then find somewhere a shaded tree, rest beneath it, and continue on their way strengthened, so now, during the Fast, as we walk the path of sorrows and spiritual struggles, the holy fathers have placed in its midst the Life-bestowing Tree of the Cross, which provides us relief and coolness, making us, who are worn out, strong and capable of continuing our labour.

Or, as when a king is about to arrive, first, his banners and sceptres are carried, and then he himself comes, rejoicing and exulting in the victory, and the subjects rejoice with him. So our Lord Jesus Christ, wishing to show the final victory over death and to come in glory on the day of the Resurrection, first sends us His sceptre, the royal banner—the Life-Giving Cross—filling us with great consolation and preparing us so that we may receive Him, insofar as we are able to do so, and joyfully praise Him as the Victor.

It has been established in the middle of the week, at the midpoint of the Holy Forty Days, because the Holy Forty Days is like a bitter fountain, due to our contrition and the bitterness and sorrow brought by the Fast. Therefore, just as in the midst of that bitter fountain the divine Moses placed wood and sweetened it, so God, having led us through the spiritual Red Sea and delivered us from the mental Pharaoh, sweetens the bitterness of the forty-day Fast by means of the Life-Giving Wood of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross, comforting us who dwell in the wilderness until His Resurrection brings us to the heavenly Jerusalem. Or, since the Cross is called and truly is the Tree of Life, and that Tree was planted in the middle of Paradise (Eden), in the same way, the divine fathers have planted the Tree of the Cross in the middle of the Holy Forty Days, at once reminding us of Adam’s fall caused by his self-indulgence and also granting deliverance from it through this Tree; for by partaking of it, we no longer die, but rather are made alive.

By its power, O Christ God, preserve us from the temptations of the evil one; grant that, having joyfully completed the forty-day journey of the Fast, we may venerate Your Divine Passion and Life-giving Resurrection and have mercy on us, for You alone are Good and the Lover of mankind!