The Love of the Beautiful: Sunday before the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Sunday before the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Tomorrow is the day in which the Holy Cross of Christ is celebrated in the Byzantine Churches. This is an interesting feast for me, as a hobby byzantine historian, because not only does it celebrate St. Helen's achievements in finding it, but it also celebrates the Emperor Heraclios' great victory over the Persian Empire. The recovery of the eastern provinces from the Persians and the recovery of the Holy Cross which was taken by the Persians when they captured Jerusalem. The triumphant entry of the Cross in Constantinople, a mixture of a classic Roman triumph and a Christian procession. Celebrating the the Cross by which we are set free from sin. I can not help but think of today's reading

"But may I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither does circumcision mean anything, nor does uncircumcision, but only a new creation. Peace and m...ercy be to all who follow this rule and to the Israel of God. From now on, let no one make troubles for me; for I bear the marks of Jesus on my body." Gal 6:14-17

No comments:

Post a Comment

Zoghby Initiative

I believe everything which Eastern Orthodoxy teaches.
I am in communion with the Bishop of Rome as the first among the bishops, according to the limits recognized by the Holy Fathers of the East during the first millennium, before the separation.

" We must fight to insure that Latinism and Catholicism are no longer synonymous, that Catholicism remains open to every culture, every spirit, and every form of organization compatible with the unity of faith and of love. At the same time, by our example, we must force the Orthodox Church to recognize that a union [...] with the See of Peter can be achieved without their being compelled to give up Orthodoxy" -His Beatitude Maximos IV, Patriarch of Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem of the Melkites

"It is true that we have been latinized. And this is the great merit of Metropolitan Sheptytsky at the beginning of the 20th century: that he tried to reverse this process. Personally, I consider myself a follower of Metropolitan Sheptytsky, together with many others who would like to get rid of all that has illegally entered into our spiritual, theological, liturgical, canonical heritage. We were told: If you want to be a real Catholic, you have to be Latin. And they pushed us into it. And it is only with Metropolitan Sheptytsky that we could say: Dear brothers from Rome, one can be Catholic without being Latin. And we were attacked on two fronts, Catholic-Latin and Orthodox-Byzantine. And we said: No, dear brothers, one can be Ukrainian, one can be Byzantine, one can be at the same time Catholic. These different elements do not contradict one another. So this is why neither the Latin Church nor the Orthodox Church is very happy with us. "- His Beatitude Lubomyr Husar, Patriarch of Kviv-Halych

"In other words, Rome must not require more from the East with respect to the doctrine of primacy than had been formulated and was lived in the first millennium." - former Cardinal Ratzinger