Quadrant Model of Reality Book 4 Religion More

Catholic, Lutheran, and Anglican churches[edit]

Altar with crucifix in the Armenian cathedral in Echmiatsin.

The crucifix placed upon the altar is intended to serve as a reminder to the people in attendance and the celebrant of the believed nature of the Eucharist as the actual body of Christ; the altar itself symbolically represents Golgotha. It is for this reason that Roman Law decrees it necessary to have the crucifix upon the altar whenever Mass is celebrated. Specifically, it is placed directly in between the Candlesticks in such a way that it is conveniently seen by the people. In some cases, to better fulfill this requirement, the crucifix is instead hung on the wall behind the altar, so that when the priest is facing the congregation the crucifix is not obstructed. In some churches the crucifix is suspended mid-air via strong, nearly invisible metal cords, directly above the altar itself.

While the crucifix is demanded to be upon or at least near the altar at all times, during the period of time from the first Vespers of Passion Sunday to the unveiling of the cross on Good Friday it is expected to be covered with a violet veil, except for the High Mass on the altar, when the veil is white, and Good Friday, when the veil is usually black. After Good Friday, until Holy Saturday it is necessary for all, including the bishop, the canons of the cathedral, and the celebrant to genuflect to the crucifix, which is in contrast to any other time of the year when the aforementioned are not required to genuflect.

Protestant Churches[edit]

In many of the mainline Protestant denominations, such as the Southern Baptist Convention and United Methodist,[4] also have altar crosses; usually a cross without the body of Jesus Christ, as Protestantism to be more austere when it comes to use of religious imagery.[5] These crosses are traditionally, but not always, brought in as processional crosses at the beginning of the religious service and placed at the altar in the sanctuary.[6] When approaching the altar, the acolyte is to bow at the cross to show respect toward the Lord.

Altar with crucifix in the Armenian cathedral in Echmiatsin.

QMRProcessional cross

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Processional Cross)

Ottonian processional crucifix, 10th century Essen cathedral.

A processional cross is a crucifix or cross which is carried in Christian processions.[1] Such crosses have a long history: the Gregorian mission of Saint Augustine of Canterbury to England carried one before them "like a standard", according to Bede. Other sources suggest that all churches were expected to possess one. They became detachable from their staffs, so that the earliest altar crosses were processional crosses placed on a stand at the end of the procession. In large churches the "crux gemmata", or richly jewelled cross in precious metal, was the preferred style. Notable early examples include the Cross of Justin II (possibly a hanging votive cross originally), Cross of Lothair, and Cross of Cong.[2]

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, there are different traditions surrounding the use of the processional cross. Traditional practice, still followed among churches of the Russian or other Slavic traditions, is that the use of the processional cross during the normal cycle of divine services is a primatial privilege, and will only be done when the Patriarch or First Hierarch is serving. In the modern Greek tradition, the processional Cross is often carried during the Entrance at Vespers, and during the Lesser and Great Entrances at the Divine Liturgy, regardless of whether the celebrant is a primate.

In all traditions, the cross is carried in outdoor processions, known as cross-processions for such events as Palm Sunday, Paschal Matins, during Bright Week, processions to honour the relics or icon of a saint, or on other festal occasions. On its patronal feast day a parish church or monastery will often serve a moleben (intercessory prayer service) during which a cross-procession will take place around the outside of the church. The processional cross is also used at funerals.

During an outdoor procession, the cross will usually be preceded by a large processional lantern and a deacon with thurible (incense). Religious banners and icons will follow. Then the chanters and clergy, and finally the people.

When not in use, the processional cross may be placed in the sanctuary, behind the Holy Table (altar).

Some Orthodox processional crosses will have an icon of the Crucifixion on one side, and the Resurrection on the other. The side with the Resurrection will face forward on Sundays and during the Paschal season, the Crucifixion will face forward on other days.

Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism[edit]

Catholic Processional crucifix

In the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, processional crosses are used in processions preceded by incense and flanked or followed with candles. The cross is brought up to the altar by an altar server who has been chosen to serve as crucifer.

Among Roman Catholics and High Church Anglicans, the processional cross will usually be a crucifix; in more Protestant-leaning parishes the processional cross will usually be an empty cross.

Methodism, Lutheranism and Reformed[edit]

In some Methodist, Lutheran and Reformed (Presbyterian) churches the processional cross is brought up to the altar or Chancel by a crucifer at the beginning of the service and placed at the altar, then acting as an Altar cross.[3] The acolytes that follow then bow to the cross at the altar. The Cross represents the Lord's presence at the altar.[4]

QMRCrucifer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the vegetable family, see Cruciferae.

"Cross-bearer" redirects here. For the 2012 film, see Cross Bearer.

A crucifrice

A crucifer is, in some Christian churches (particularly the Roman Catholic Church, Anglican Communion, and Lutherans), a person appointed to carry the church's processional cross, a cross or crucifix with a long staff, during processions at the beginning and end of the service.[1] However, while it is used in several different denominations, the term is most common within Anglican churches.

The term "crucifer" comes from the Latin crux (cross) and ferre (to bear, carry). It thus literally means "cross-bearer". Before the Roman Catholic reforms of the Second Vatican Council, the function of the crucifer was carried out by a subdeacon.

QMRFour medieval relics[edit]

During the Middle Ages, three major contenders for the position of Holy Chalice stood out from the rest, one in Jerusalem, one in Genoa and the third in Valencia. A fourth medieval cup was briefly touted as the Holy Chalice when it was discovered in the early 20th century; it is known as the Antioch Chalice and is in the Metropolitan Museum, New York.

The Jerusalem Chalice[edit]

The earliest record of a chalice from the Last Supper is the account of Arculf a 7th-century Anglo-Saxon pilgrim who described it in De locis sanctis as being located in a reliquary in a chapel near Jerusalem, between the basilica of Golgotha and the Martyrium. He described it as a two-handled silver chalice with the measure of a Gaulish pint. Arculf kissed his hand and reached through an opening of the perforated lid of the reliquary to touch the chalice. He said that the people of the city flocked to it with great veneration. (Arculf also saw the Holy Lance in the porch of the basilica of Constantine.) This is the only mention of the Holy Chalice being situated in the Holy Land.

The Genoa Chalice[edit]

Of two vessels that survive today, one is at Genoa, in the cathedral. The hexagonal vessel is known as the sacro catino, the holy basin. Traditionally said to be carved from emerald, it is in fact a green Egyptian glass dish, about fourteen inches (35 cm) across. It was sent to Paris after Napoleon’s conquest of Italy, and was returned broken, which identified the emerald as glass. Its origin is uncertain; according to William of Tyre, writing in about 1170, it was found in the mosque at Caesarea in 1101: "a vase of brilliant green shaped like a bowl." The Genoese, believing that it was of emerald, accepted it in lieu of a large sum of money. An alternative story in a Spanish chronicle says that it was found when Alfonso VII of Castile captured Almería from the Moors in 1147 with Genoese help, un vaso de piedra esmeralda que era tamanno como una escudiella, "a vase carved from emerald which was the size of a dish". The Genoese said that this was the only thing they wanted from the sack of Almería. The identification of the sacro catino with the Holy Chalice is not made until later, however, by Jacobus de Voragine in his chronicle of Genoa, written at the close of the 13th century.

The Valencia Chalice[edit]

The Valencia Chalice in its chapel in Valencia Cathedral

The other surviving Holy Chalice vessel is the santo cáliz, an agate cup in the Cathedral of Valencia. It is preserved in a chapel consecrated to it, where it still attracts the faithful on pilgrimage.

The piece is a hemispherical cup made of dark red agate which is mounted by means of a knobbed stem and two curved handles onto a base made from an inverted cup of chalcedony. The agate cup is about 9 centimeters/ 3.5 inches in diameter and the total height, including base, is about 17 centimeters/ 7 inches high. The agate cup, without the base, fits a description by Saint Jerome.[citation needed] The lower part has Arabic inscriptions.

After an inspection in 1960, the Spanish archaeologist Antonio Beltrán asserted that the cup was produced in a Palestinian or Egyptian workshop between the 4th century BC and the 1st century AD.[citation needed] The surface has not been dated by microscopic scanning to assess recrystallization.

The Chalice of Valencia comes complete with a certificate of authenticity,[citation needed] an inventory list on vellum, said to date from AD 262, that accompanied a lost letter of which details state-sponsored Roman persecution of Christians that forces the church to split up its treasury and hide it with members, specifically the deacon Saint Lawrence. It goes on to enumerate all precious items. The physical properties of the Holy Chalice are described and it is stated the vessel had been used to celebrate Mass by the early Popes succeeding Saint Peter.[citation needed]

The first explicit inventory reference to the present Chalice of Valencia dates from 1134, an inventory of the treasury of the monastery of San Juan de la Peña drawn up by Don Carreras Ramírez, Canon of Zaragoza, December 14, 1134: "En un arca de marfil está el Cáliz en que Cristo N. Señor consagró su sangre, el cual envió S. Lorenzo a su patria, Huesca". According to the wording of this document, the Chalice is described as the vessel in which "Christ Our Lord consecrated his blood".[3]

Reference to the chalice is made in 1399, when it was given by the monastery of San Juan de la Peña to king Martin I of Aragon in exchange for a gold cup. By the end of the century a provenance for the chalice can be detected, by which Saint Peter had brought it to Rome.[clarification needed]

Pope John Paul II himself celebrated mass with the Holy Chalice in Valencia in November 1982, causing some uproar both in skeptic circles and in the circles that hoped he would say accipiens et hunc praeclarum Calicem ("this most famous chalice") in lieu of the ordinary words of the Mass taken from Matthew 26:27). For some people, the authenticity of the Chalice of Valencia failed to receive papal blessing.

In July 2006, at the closing Mass of the 5th World Meeting of Families in Valencia, Pope Benedict XVI also celebrated with the Holy Chalice, on this occasion saying "this most famous chalice", words in the Roman Canon said to have been used for the first popes until the 4th century in Rome, and supporting in this way the tradition of the Holy Chalice of Valencia. This artifact has seemingly never been accredited with any supernatural powers, which legend apparently confines to other relics such as the Holy Grail, the Holy Lance and the True Cross.

In Saint Laurence and the Holy Grail, Janice Bennett claims to trace the chalice's history, carried on Saint Peter's journey to Rome, entrusted by Pope Sixtus II to Saint Lawrence in the third century, sent to Huesca in Spain when the Hispanic saint was martyred on a gridiron during the Valerian persecution in Rome in AD 258, sent to the Pyrenees for safekeeping, where it passed from monastery to monastery, in accordance with all the claims to former possession of the Chalice, and venerated by the monks of the Monastery of San Juan de la Peña. Emerging there into the light of history, the monastery's agate cup was acquired by King Martin I of Aragon in 1399 who kept it at Zaragoza. After his death, King Alfonso V of Aragón brought it to Valencia, where it has remained.

Bennett presents as historical evidence a 17th-century Spanish text entitled Life and Martyrdom of the Glorious Spaniard St. Laurence from a monastery in Valencia, which is supposed to be a translation -as the original manuscript does not exist- of a 6th-century manuscript Latin entitled Vita, written by Donato, an Augustinian monk who founded a monastery in the area of Valencia, which contains circumstantial details of the life of Saint Laurence and details surrounding the transfer of the Chalice to Spain. Her claims are not corroborated by the main source for the life of St. Laurence, the poem Peristephanon by the 5th-century poet Prudentius, which does not mention the Chalice that was later said to have passed through his hands.

In 1960 the Spanish archeologist Antonio Beltrán studied the Chalice and concluded: "Archeology supports and definitively confirms the historical authenticity".[citation needed] "Everyone in Spain believes it is the cup," Bennett said to a reporter from the Denver Catholic Register. "You can see it every day that the chapel is open."

The Antioch Chalice[edit]

A photo of a large ovoid vessel standing on a short knobbed stem. The cup comprises a silver body enclosed in an openwork layer of gold. The gold ornamentation represents vine scrolls enclosing small seated and praying figures.

The Antioch Chalice, first half of the 6th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art

The silver-gilt object originally identified as an early Christian chalice is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It was apparently made at Antioch in the early 6th century and is of double-cup construction, with an outer shell of cast-metal open work enclosing a plain silver inner cup. When it was first recovered in Antioch in 1910, it was touted as the Holy Chalice, an identification the Metropolitan Museum characterizes as "ambitious". It is no longer identified as a chalice, having been identified by experts at Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, believed to be a standing lamp, of a style of the 6th century.[4]

Holy Cross Abbey[edit] A fragment of the Holy Rood was brought to a Cistercian Abbey in Thurles, County Tipperary, Ireland by Isabella of Angoulême, widow of King John of England, and thenceforth the Abbey was called Holy Cross Abbey. The relic was lost following the Cromwellian war in Ireland. However, it was later found and is currently in the Abbey. Waltham Abbey[edit] The term is also applied to the black flint cross formerly held at Waltham Abbey in Essex, England. The Holy Rood or Cross was the subject of veneration and pilgrimage in the middle ages, but disappeared when the Abbey was dissolved in 1540.[4]

Black Rood of Scotland[edit] Saint Margaret (c.1045–1093), a Saxon Princess of England, was born in Hungary. Following the conquest of England by the Normans in 1066, she fled to Scotland, where she married Malcolm III Canmore, King of Scotland. She is said to have brought the "Holy Rood", a fragment of Christ's cross, from Hungary or England to Scotland with her. It was known as the Black Rood of Scotland. The Catholic Encyclopedia reports that Saint Margaret brought the cross from Waltham Abbey, after which it was kept in Holyrood Abbey, which her son erected in Edinburgh.[1] The relic was removed from Scotland by Edward I of England in 1296, along with the Stone of Scone and other treasures, but the Black Rood was returned in 1328. It was lost to the English again following the battle of Neville's Cross in 1346, after which it was held in Durham Cathedral until the Reformation of 1540, when it was presumably destroyed.[2] An inventory made in England described the cross and its case in Latin soon after it was taken from Edinburgh Castle in 1296 as; "Unum scrinium argenteum deauratum in quo reponitur crux que vocatur le blake rode", which can be translated as "A silver-gilt casket in which lies the cross called the Black Rood".[3]

QMRHolyrood (cross)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Holyrood or Holy Rood is a Christian relic considered to be part of the True Cross on which Jesus died. The word derives from the Old English rood, meaning a cross, or from the Scots haly ruid ("holy cross"). Several relics venerated as part of the True Cross are known by this name, in England, Ireland and Scotland.

QMRDream of the Rood

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The mediaeval manuscript of The Dream of the Rood

The Dream of the Rood is one of the earliest Christian poems in the corpus of Old English literature and an example of the genre of dream poetry. Like most Old English poetry, it is written in alliterative verse. Rood is from the Old English word rod 'pole', or more specifically 'crucifix'. Preserved in the 10th century Vercelli Book, the poem may be as old as the 8th century Ruthwell Cross, and is considered one

of the oldest works of Old English literature.

The Charlton-on-Otmoor Garland[edit] The Charlton-on-Otmoor rood in 2011 Two corn-dolly-like garlands formerly stood in the rood loft, as illustrated in 1823.[citation needed] The single garland in the rood loft at Charlton-on-Otmoor, illustrated by J.H. Parker in 1840. A unique rood exists at St Mary's parish church, Charlton-on-Otmoor, near Oxford, England, where a large wooden cross, solidly covered in greenery, and known as the Garland, stands on the early 16th-century rood screen (said by Sherwood and Pevsner to be the finest in Oxfordshire).[14] The cross is redecorated twice a year, on 1 May and 19 September (the patronal festival, calculated according to the Julian Calendar), when children from the local primary school, carrying small crosses decorated with flowers, bring a long, flower-decorated, rope-like garland. The cross is dressed or redecorated with locally obtained box foliage. The rope-like garland is hung across the rood screen during the "May Garland Service".[15] An engraving from 1823 shows the dressed rood cross as a more open, foliage-covered framework, similar to certain types of corn dolly, with a smaller attendant figure of similar appearance. Folklorists have commented on the garland crosses' resemblance to human figures, and noted that they replaced statues of St Mary and Saint James the Great which had stood on the rood screen until they were destroyed during the Reformation. Until the 1850s, the larger garland cross was carried in a May Day procession, accompanied by morris dancers, to the former Benedictine Studley priory (as the statue of St Mary had been, until the Reformation). Meanwhile, the women of the village used to carry the smaller garland cross through Charlton,[15] though it seems that this ceased some time between 1823 and 1840, when an illustration in J.H. Parker's A Glossary of Terms Used in Grecian, Roman, Italian, and Gothic Architecture shows only one garland cross, centrally positioned on the rood screen.[16]

Representative examples[edit] Cross from Linde Church on Gotland (today in the Swedish History Museum) also displays the symbol of a ruler, demonstrating the origin of the name. Triumphal cross of Notke in Lübeck Cathedral Triumphal cross (Christ's side) in Doberan Minster The "plate cross" (Scheibenkreuz) in St. Mary's (Hohnekirche) in Soest (around 1200) Forked cross in St. Peter's at Merzig

Representative examples[edit] Cross from Linde Church on Gotland (today in the Swedish History Museum) also displays the symbol of a ruler, demonstrating the origin of the name. Triumphal cross of Notke in Lübeck Cathedral Triumphal cross (Christ's side) in Doberan Minster The "plate cross" (Scheibenkreuz) in St. Mary's (Hohnekirche) in Soest (around 1200) Forked cross in St. Peter's at Merzig

Rood screens[edit] Rood screens developed in the 13th century, as a wooden or stone screens, also usually separating the chancel or choir from the nave, upon which the rood now stood. The screen may be elaborately carved and was often richly painted and gilded. Rood screens were found in Christian churches in most parts of Europe by the end of the Middle Ages, though in Catholic countries the great majority were gradually removed after the Council of Trent, and most were removed or drastically cut down in areas controlled by Calvinists and Anglicans. The best medieval examples are now mostly in the Lutheran countries such as Germany and Scandinavia, where they were often left undisturbed in country churches. Rood screens are the Western equivalent of the Byzantine templon beam, which developed into the Eastern Orthodox iconostasis. Some rood screens incorporate a rood loft, a narrow gallery or just flat walkway which could be used to clean or decorate the rood or cover it up in Lent, or in larger examples by singers or musicians. An alternative type of screen is the Pulpitum, as seen in Exeter Cathedral, which is near the main altar of the church. The rood itself provided a focus for worship, most especially in Holy Week, when worship was highly elaborate. During Lent the rood was veiled; on Palm Sunday it was revealed before the procession of palms and the congregation knelt before it. The whole Passion story would then be read from the rood loft, at the foot of the crucifix, by three ministers. No original medieval rood now survives in a church in the United Kingdom.[13] Most were deliberately destroyed as acts of iconoclasm during the English Reformation and the English Civil War, when many rood screens were also removed. Today, in many British churches, the "rood stair" that gave access to the gallery is often the only remaining sign of the former rood screen and rood loft. In the nineteenth century, under the influence of the Oxford Movement, roods and screens were again added to many Anglican churches.

Attendant figures[edit] A triumphal cross may be surrounded by a group of people. These people may include Mary and John, the "beloved disciple" (based on John's Gospel (John 19:25-27, Matthew 27:25f, Mark 15;40f and Luke 23:49)), but also apostles, angels and the benefactor. The triumphal cross of the Church of Öja in Gotland stands on a transverse beam beneath the triumphal arch and is flanked by two people: Mary and John. The triumphal cross in the abbey church of Wechselburg stands in an elevated position on the rood screen and also has the same pair of attendant figures. The triumphal cross in Schwerin Cathedral is also flanked by Mary and John. At the end of the cross' beam the Evangelist's symbols may be seen. In St. Mary's Church in Osnabrück there are only the empty stone pedestals of the attendant figures. The triumphal cross above the screen in Halberstadt Cathedral is not flanked by Mary and John, but by two angels. On the supporting beam of the triumphal cross in Lübeck Cathedral there is also a bishop, presumably the benefactor of the cross.

Components[edit] Rood cross on rood screen at Albi Cathedral, France Image of Christ[edit] In the Romanesque era the crucified Christ was presented as ruler and judge. Instead of a crown of thorns he wears a crown or a halo, on his feet he wears "shoes" as a sign of the ruler. He is victorious over death. His feet are parallel to each other on the wooden support ("Four nail type") and not one on top of the other.[11] The perizoma (loincloth) is highly stylized and falls in vertical folds. In the transition to the Gothic style, the triumphant Christ becomes suffering Christ, the pitiful Man of Sorrows. Instead of the ruler's crown, he wears the crown of thorns, his feet are placed one above the other and are pierced with a single nail. His facial expression and posture express his pain. The wounds of the body are often dramatically portrayed. The loincloth is no longer so clearly stylized. The attendant figures Mary and John show signs of grief.[12]

History[edit] Numerous near life-size crucifixes survive from the Romanesque period or earlier, with the Gero Cross in Cologne Cathedral (AD 965–970) and the Volto Santo of Lucca the best known. The prototype may have been one known to have been set up in Charlemagne's Palatine Chapel in Aachen, apparently in gold foil worked over a wooden core in the manner of the Golden Madonna of Essen,[8] though figureless jeweled gold crosses are recorded in similar positions in Hagia Sophia in Constantinople in the 5th century. Many figures in precious metal are recorded in Anglo-Saxon monastic records, though none now survive. Notables sometimes gave their crowns (Cnut the Great at Winchester Cathedral), necklaces (Lady Godiva to the Virgin accompanying the rood at Evesham Abbey), or swords (Tovi the Proud, Waltham Abbey) to decorate them.[9] The original location and support for the surviving figures is often unclear but a number of northern European churches preserve the original setting in full — they are known as a Triumphkreuz in German, from the "triumphal arch" (or "chancel arch") of Early Christian architecture. As in later examples the Virgin and Saint John often flank the cross, and cherubim and other figures are sometimes seen. A gilt rood in the 10th-century Mainz Cathedral was only placed on a beam on special feast days.[10]

Position[edit] In church architecture the rood, or rood cross, is a life-sized crucifix displayed on the central axis of a church, normally at the chancel arch. The earliest roods hung from the top of the chancel arch (rood arch), or rested on a plain "rood beam" across it, usually at the level of the capitals of the columns. This original arrangement is still found in many churches in Germany and Scandinavia, although many other surviving crosses now hang on walls. If the choir is separated from the church interior by a rood screen, the rood cross is placed on, or more rarely in front of, the screen.[6][7] Under the rood is usually the altar of the Holy Cross.

Derivation[edit] Rood is an archaic word for pole, from Old English rōd "pole", specifically "cross", from Proto-Germanic *rodo, cognate to Old Saxon rōda, Old High German ruoda "rod".[3] Rood was originally the only Old English word for the instrument of Jesus Christ's death. The words crúc and in the North cros (from either Old Irish or Old Norse) appeared by late Old English; "crucifix" is first recorded in English in the Ancrene Wisse of about 1225.[4] More precisely, the Rood was the True Cross, the specific wooden cross used in Christ's crucifixion. The word remains in use in some names, such as Holyrood Palace and the Old English poem The Dream of the Rood. The phrase "by the rood" was used in swearing, e.g. "No, by the rood, not so" in Shakespeare's Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 4). The alternative term triumphal cross (Latin: crux triumphalis, German: Triumphkreuz), which is more usual in Europe, signifies the triumph that the resurrected Jesus Christ (Christus triumphans) won over death.[5]

QMR A rood or rood cross, sometimes known as a triumphal cross,[1] is a cross or crucifix, especially the large Crucifixion set above the entrance to the chancel of a medieval church.[2] Alternatively, it is a large sculpture or painting of the crucifixion of Jesus.

QMRThe Papal ferula (from Latin ferula, "rod") is the pastoral staff used by the pope. It is a rod with a knob on top surmounted by a cross. This is in contrast to other bishops, who use a crosier which is shaped like a shepherd's crook: bent or crooked at the top and pointed at the lower end.

QMRCloisters Cross From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Cloisters Cross, 2009 The Cloisters Cross, also referred to as the Bury St Edmunds Cross, is an unusually complex 12th century ivory Romanesque altar cross in The Cloisters, part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The cross is carved from walrus ivory and measures 225⁄8 × 141⁄4 in. (57.5 × 36.2 cm). The carvings which cover both front and back sides include ninety-two intricately carved figures and ninety-eight inscriptions. The figures, each of which is only about one-half inch tall, illustrate a number of Biblical scenes, and on the back a number of the Old Testament prophets with banderoles containing quotations from their books. There is debate over whether or not these inscriptions are chosen with an anti-Semitic intent. The Metropolitan website currently says: "Prominent among the inscriptions are several strong invectives against Jews. Though it is impossible to know precisely who commissioned this piece and with what aims, the cross certainly offers some indication of the anti-Semitism prevalent in England at this time. Indeed, by the end of the thirteenth century, Jews were expelled from the country".[1] This theme was developed in a book by Thomas Hoving, the curator involved when the Metropolitan acquired the cross, and later Director. This was unkindly described in an academic review of Parker and Little as "an autobiographical romance ... written in Raymond Chandler style".[2] Elizabeth C. Parker and Charles T. Little, in a book also published by the Metropolitan, disagree with Hoving and think that it is doubtful that the cross, a sophisticated theological object, was specifically designed for the purpose of either castigating or converting any member of the small Jewish population in England in the mid-twelfth century. The sculptor is not known. Thomas Hoving, who managed the acquisition of the cross while he was Associate Curator at The Cloisters, concluded that it was carved by Master Hugo at the Bury St. Edmunds Abbey in Suffolk. However, there is no certain evidence to suggest that the cross was even made in England, although this is accepted by most scholars, and other places of origin such as Germany have been proposed. The history of the cross before it was acquired by Ante Topić Mimara is unknown. He sold it to the Metropolitan Museum in 1963. The British Museum also had an interest in acquiring the cross.

QMRHoly Face of Lucca

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Volto Santo of Lucca

The legend of the fiddler in a Parisian miniature of 1400-20

The Holy Face of Lucca (Italian: Volto Santo di Lucca) is a venerated wooden corpus (body) of a crucifix in Lucca, Italy. Medieval legends stated that it had been sculpted by that Nicodemus who assisted Joseph of Arimathea in depositing Christ in the tomb and specifically dated its arrival in Lucca to AD 742.

The present Holy Face itself is an early thirteenth-century copy of the original ascribed to the circle of Benedetto Antelami.[1] It appears that the original was chipped away beyond repair by relic-seeking pilgrims. The earliest copies date from the early twelfth century, which may suggest that the original in fact dates only from the 11th century. Its presence in Lucca can only be securely documented from about 1100, although Abbot Leofstan of Bury St Edmunds Abbey, who died in 1065, recorded that the inspiration for a life-size crucifix he had made for Bury St Edmunds was one he saw at Lucca on his way to Rome.[2]

The Holy Face is located in the free-standing octagonal Carrara marble chapel (the tempietto or "little temple"), which was built in 1484 by Matteo Civitali, the sculptor-architect of Lucca, to contain it. The tempietto stands in the right-hand nave of the cathedral of San Martino in Lucca, Italy.

Copies of a similar size from the 12th century are found widely spread across Europe. These include the Cross of Imervard in the Brunswick Cathedral at Braunschweig, Germany, the Holy Face of Sansepolcro at Sansepolcro, Italy and possibly the Batlló Crucifix of Barcelona, Spain.[3]

Arguments[edit] Concerns over the quarter system include faculty dislike of the brevity of the term, the loss of faculty research and collaboration time, the shortness of student internship periods, difficulties in recovering from illness-linked absence, and the heavy administrative workload.[3] A quarter system calendar also may put schools at a disadvantage in competing for prospective students, who wish to keep in-step with friends, and offer more opportunities for students to "disconnect from school."[3] Quarter systems do allow students to enroll in a richer variety of courses and school-coordinated internships and may encourage students to take on double majors, minors, concentrations, and the like.[3] A quarter system can maximize the use of college facilities in a time of enrollment growth, as it allows for four regular periods of academic instruction.[13] Also, quarters allow for faculty to engage in terms with a relatively light course load of teaching and greater opportunities for short sabbaticals.[5]

QMRAcademic quarter (year division) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia An academic quarter refers to the division of an academic year into four parts, found in a minority of universities in the United States and in some European and Asian countries. Contents [hide] 1 Background and trends 2 Arguments 3 See also 4 References Background and trends[edit] In the United States, quarters typically comprise 10 weeks of class instruction,[1] although they have historically ranged from eight to 13 weeks.[2] Academic quarters first came into existence as such when William Rainey Harper organized the University of Chicago on behalf of John D. Rockefeller in 1891. Harper decided to keep the school in session year-round and divide it into four terms instead of the then-traditional two.[2] Of the four traditional academic calendars (semester, quarter, trimester, and 4-1-4), the semester calendar is used the most widely, at over 60% of U.S. higher learning institutions, with fewer than 20% using the quarter system.[3] This number has stayed fairly constant since 1930, when 75% of U.S. institutions surveyed indicated they used a semester plan, with 22% on the quarter system.[4] During the 1960s, a number of U.S. statewide educational systems made a switch from a semester to quarter system, typically in an attempt to accommodate the Tidal Wave I enrollment boom, most prominently the University of California system.[5] Since then, UC Berkeley switched back to semesters in 1983,[6] the new UC Merced branch opened with the semester system, and some UC professional schools have switched back to semesters at various points.[5] At various points since, committees have been established and official discussions have taken place within the UC system to discuss a systemwide switch back to the semester system.[5][7] In recent years, a number of higher education institutions have considered or already approved a switch to a semester system including the higher education systems of Ohio[8][9] and Georgia,[10] and individual public colleges.[11] Rochester Institute of Technology has announced their intention to convert to semesters by Fall 2013, although the decision is highly controversial, overriding a student vote to remain with quarters.[12]

South Africa[edit] See also: Education in South Africa All South African public schools have a four-term school year as determined by the national Department of Education. Each term is between 10 and 11 weeks long. The terms are roughly structured as follows: First Term Begins mid-January and ends before Good Friday (Usually in March or April). Followed by the Easter Holidays, which usually last 10 days. Second Term Begins mid-April and ends June Followed by the Winter Holidays, which usually last 21 days. Third Term Begins mid-July and ends September Followed by the September Holidays, also sometimes called the Spring Holidays, which usually last 10 days. Fourth Term Begins early October and ends early December Followed by the Christmas Holidays, also sometimes called the December or Summer Holidays, which usually last approximately 40 days. The academic year is approximately 200 school days in duration and runs from January to December. Private schools follow a similar calendar, but slightly alter it according to their academic and religious needs. Some independent (private) schools have a three-term year instead [3]. The dates of the school year for coastal schools are slightly different from those for inland schools.[18] The National Education Department proposed a five-week-long school break in June–July 2010 for the 2010 Soccer World Cup-hosted in South Africa-to avoid pupil and teacher absenteeism and a chaotic transport system.[19] South African universities have a year consisting of two semesters, with the first semester running from early February to early June, and the second semester from late July to late November. Each semester consists of twelve or thirteen teaching weeks, interrupted by a one-week short vacation, and followed by three or four weeks of examinations. In the first semester the short vacation often falls around the Easter weekend, while in the second semester it occurs in early September.

QMRTrue Cross

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from True cross)

For detailed information regarding the Crucifixion itself, see Crucifixion of Jesus.

Christ crucified, painted by Giotto, circa 1310.

The True Cross is the name for physical remnants which, by a Christian tradition, are believed to be from the cross upon which Jesus was crucified.[1]

According to post-Nicene historians such as Socrates Scholasticus, the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, the first Christian Emperor of Rome, travelled to the Holy Land in 326–28, founding churches and establishing relief agencies for the poor. Historians Gelasius of Caesarea and Rufinus claimed that she discovered the hiding place of three crosses that were believed to be used at the crucifixion of Jesus and of two thieves, St. Dismas and Gestas, executed with him, and that a miracle revealed which of the three was the True Cross.

Many churches possess fragmentary remains that are by tradition alleged to be those of the True Cross. Their authenticity is not accepted universally by those of the Christian faith and the accuracy of the reports surrounding the discovery of the True Cross is questioned by some Christians.[2] The acceptance and belief of that part of the tradition that pertains to the Early Christian Church is generally restricted to the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The medieval legends that developed concerning its provenance differ between Catholic and Orthodox tradition. These churches honour Helena as a saint, as does also the Anglican Communion.

Provenance of the True Cross[edit]

The Queen of Sheba venerates the wood from which the Cross will be made (fresco by Piero della Francesca in San Francesco, Arezzo).

The Golden Legend[edit]

In the Latin-speaking traditions of Western Europe, the story of the pre-Christian origins of the True Cross was well established by the 13th century when, in 1260, it was recorded, by Jacopo de Voragine, Bishop of Genoa, in the Golden Legend.[3]

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.[4] In another account contained in Of the invention of the Holy Cross, and first of this word invention, Voragine writes that the True Cross came from a tree that grew from part of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, or "the tree that Adam ate of", that Seth planted on Adam's grave where it "endured there unto the time of Solomon".[5]

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 King Solomon. So struck was she by the portent 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 God's Covenant with the Jewish people, by a new order. Solomon, fearing the eventual destruction of his people, had the timber buried. But after fourteen generations, the wood taken from the bridge was fashioned into the Cross used to crucify Christ. Voragine then goes on to describe its finding by Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine.[6]

Acceptance of this tradition[edit]

In the late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance, there was a wide general acceptance of the origin of the True Cross and its history preceding the Crucifixion, as recorded by Voragine. This general acceptance is confirmed by the numerous artworks that depict this subject, culminating in one of the most famous fresco cycles of the Renaissance, the Legend of the True Cross by Piero della Francesca, painted on the walls of the chancel of the Church of San Francesco in Arezzo between 1452 and 1466, in which he reproduces faithfully the traditional episodes of the story as recorded in The Golden Legend.

Eastern Christianity[edit]

The Golden Legend and many of its sources developed after the East-West Schism of 1054,[citation needed] and thus is unknown in the Greek- or Syriac-speaking worlds. The above pre-Crucifixion history, therefore, is not to be found in Eastern Christianity.[citation needed]

According to the Sacred Tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church the True Cross was made from three different types of wood: cedar, pine and cypress.[7] This is an allusion to Isaiah 60:13: "The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box [cypress] together to beautify the place of my sanctuary, and I will make the place of my feet glorious." The link between this verse and the Crucifixion lies in the words, "the place of my feet", which is interpreted as referring to the suppendaneum (foot rest) on which Jesus' feet were nailed (see Orthodox cross).

There is a tradition that the three trees from which the True Cross was constructed grew together in one spot. A traditional Orthodox icon depicts Lot, the nephew of Abraham, watering the trees.[7] According to tradition, these trees were used to construct the Temple in Jerusalem ("to beautify the place of my sanctuary"). Later, during Herod's reconstruction of the Temple, the wood from these trees was removed from the Temple and discarded, eventually being used to construct the cross on which Jesus was crucified ("and I will make the place of my feet glorious").

Finding the True Cross[edit]

The Finding of the True Cross, Agnolo Gaddi, Florence, 1380.

According to Eusebius[edit]

Eusebius of Caesarea, in his Life of Constantine,[8] describes how the site of the Holy Sepulchre, originally a site of veneration for the Christian community in Jerusalem, had been covered with earth and a temple of Venus had been built on top. Although Eusebius does not say as much, this would probably have been done as part of Hadrian's reconstruction of Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina in 135, following the destruction during the Jewish Revolt of 70 and Bar Kokhba's revolt of 132–135. Following his conversion to Christianity, Emperor Constantine ordered in about 325–326 that the site be uncovered and instructed Saint Macarius, Bishop of Jerusalem, to build a church on the site. In his Life of Constantine, Eusebius does not mention the finding of the True Cross.

According to Socrates Scholasticus[edit]

Socrates Scholasticus (born c. 380), in his Ecclesiastical History, gives a full description of the discovery[9] that was repeated later by Sozomen and by Theodoret. In it he describes how Saint Helena, Constantine's aged mother, had the pagan temple destroyed and the Sepulchre uncovered, whereupon three crosses and the titulus from Jesus's crucifixion were uncovered as well. In Socrates's version of the story, Macarius had the three crosses placed in turn on a deathly ill woman. This woman recovered at the touch of the third cross, which was taken as a sign that this was the cross of Christ, the new Christian symbol. Socrates also reports that, having also found the nails with which Christ had been fastened to the cross, Helena sent these to Constantinople, where they were incorporated into the emperor's helmet and the bridle of his horse.

According to Sozomen[edit]

Sozomen (died c. 450), in his Ecclesiastical History, gives essentially the same version as Socrates. He also adds that it was said (by whom he does not say) that the location of the Sepulchre was "disclosed by a Hebrew who dwelt in the East, and who derived his information from some documents which had come to him by paternal inheritance" (although Sozomen himself disputes this account) and that a dead person was also revived by the touch of the Cross. Later popular versions of this story state that the Jew who assisted Helena was named Jude or Judas, but later converted to Christianity and took the name Kyriakos.

According to Theodoret[edit]

The proving of the True Cross, Jean Colombe in the Très Riches Heures.

Theodoret (died c. 457) in his Ecclesiastical History Chapter xvii gives what had become the standard version of the finding of the True Cross:

When the empress beheld the place where the Saviour suffered, she immediately ordered the idolatrous temple, which had been there erected, to be destroyed, and the very earth on which it stood to be removed. When the tomb, which had been so long concealed, was discovered, three crosses were seen buried near the Lord's sepulchre. All held it as certain that one of these crosses was that of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that the other two were those of the thieves who were crucified with Him. Yet they could not discern to which of the three the Body of the Lord had been brought nigh, and which had received the outpouring of His precious Blood. But the wise and holy Macarius, the president of the city, resolved this question in the following manner. He caused a lady of rank, who had been long suffering from disease, to be touched by each of the crosses, with earnest prayer, and thus discerned the virtue residing in that of the Saviour. For the instant this cross was brought near the lady, it expelled the sore disease, and made her whole.

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."

Syriac tradition[edit]

Another popular ancient version from the Syriac tradition replaced Helena with a fictitious first-century empress named Protonike.

Scholarly opinion[edit]

Historians[who?] consider these versions to be apocryphal in varying degrees. It is certain, however, that the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre was completed by 335 and that alleged relics of the Cross were being venerated there by the 340s, as they are mentioned in the Catecheses of Cyril of Jerusalem (see below).

The relics of the Cross in Jerusalem[edit]

After Empress Helena[edit]

The silver reliquary that was left at the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in care of the bishop of Jerusalem was exhibited periodically to the faithful. In the 380s a nun named Egeria who was travelling on pilgrimage described the veneration of the True Cross at Jerusalem in a long letter, the Itinerario Egeriae that she sent back to her community of women:

Then a chair is placed for the bishop in Golgotha behind the [liturgical] Cross, which is now standing; the bishop duly takes his seat in the chair, and a table covered with a linen cloth is placed before him; the deacons stand round the table, and a silver-gilt casket is brought in which is the holy wood of the Cross. The casket is opened and [the wood] is taken out, and both the wood of the Cross and the title are placed upon the table. Now, when it has been put upon the table, the bishop, as he sits, holds the extremities of the sacred wood firmly in his hands, while the deacons who stand around guard it. It is guarded thus because the custom is that the people, both faithful and catechumens, come one by one and, bowing down at the table, kiss the sacred wood and pass through. And because, I know not when, some one is said to have bitten off and stolen a portion of the sacred wood, it is thus guarded by the deacons who stand around, lest any one approaching should venture to do so again. And as all the people pass by one by one, all bowing themselves, they touch the Cross and the title, first with their foreheads and then with their eyes; then they kiss the Cross and pass through, but none lays his hand upon it to touch it. When they have kissed the Cross and have passed through, a deacon stands holding the ring of Solomon and the horn from which the kings were anointed; they kiss the horn also and gaze at the ring...[10]

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 lance that pierced his side.

During Persian-Byzantine war (614-630)[edit]

In 614 the Sassanid Emperor Khosrau II ("Chosroes") removed the part of the cross held in Jerusalem as a trophy, when he captured the city. Thirteen years later, in 628, the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius defeated Khosrau and regained the relic from Shahrbaraz. He placed the cross in Constantinople at first, and took it back to Jerusalem on 21 March 630.[11] Some scholars disagree with this narrative, Professor Constantin Zuckerman going as far as to suggest that the True Cross was actually lost by the Persians, and that the wood contained in the allegedly still sealed reliquary brought to Jerusalem by Heraclius in 629 was a fake. In his analysis, the hoax was designed to serve the political purposes of both Heraclius and his former foe, recently turned ally and co-father-in-law, Persian general and soon-to-become king, Shahrvaraz.[12]

Fatimids, Crusaders and loss of the Cross[edit]

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 knights of the First Crusade. Arnulf Malecorne, the first Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, had the Greek Orthodox priests who were in possession of the Cross tortured in order to reveal its position.[13] The relic that Arnulf discovered was a small fragment of wood embedded in a golden cross, and it became the most sacred relic of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, with none of the controversy that had followed their discovery of the Holy Lance in Antioch. It was housed in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre under the protection of the Latin Patriarch, who marched with it ahead of the army before every battle.

Reliquary of the True Cross at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem.

After King Baldwin I of Jerusalem presented King Sigurd I 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, and while some Christian rulers, like Richard the Lionheart,[14] Byzantine emperor Isaac II Angelos and Tamar, Queen of Georgia, sought to ransom it from Saladin,[15] the cross was not returned and subsequently disappeared from historical records. The True Cross was last seen being paraded through the streets of Damascus upside down by the victorious Muslims after the Battle of Hattin. [16]

Current relic[edit]

Currently the Greek Orthodox present a small True Cross relic shown in the so-called Greek Treasury at the foot the Golgotha, within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.[17]

Dispersal of relics of the True Cross[edit]

An enamelled silver reliquary of the True Cross from Constantinople, c. 800.

One of the largest purported fragments of the True Cross is at Santo Toribio de Liébana in Spain. (photo by F. J. Díez Martín).

A "Kreuzpartikel" or fragment of True Cross in the Schatzkammer (Vienna).

An inscription of 359, found at Tixter, in the neighbourhood of Sétif in Mauretania, was said to mention, in an enumeration of relics, a fragment of the True Cross, according to an entry in Roman Miscellanies, X, 441.

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,"[18] 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."[19] Egeria's account testifies to how highly these relics of the crucifixion were prized. Saint 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.[20] 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", so 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.[21]

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).[22] Although it is possible, the poem need not be referring to this specific relic or have this incident as the reason for its composition.

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: "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 was decorated with gold and precious jewels. There it attained 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."[23][24][25] A knight Robert de Clari wrote: "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."[26]

By the end of the Middle Ages so many churches claimed to possess a piece of the True Cross, that John Calvin is famously said to have remarked that there was enough wood in them to fill a ship:

"There is no abbey so poor as not to have a specimen. In some places there are large fragments, as at the Holy Chapel in Paris, at Poitiers, and at Rome, where a good-sized crucifix is said to have been made of it. In brief, if all the pieces that could be found were collected together, they would make a big ship-load. Yet the Gospel testifies that a single man was able to carry it."

— Calvin, Traité Des Reliques.

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 three or four metres in height, with transverse branch of two metres 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 0.178 cubic metres (6.286 cubic feet). The total known volume of known relics of the True Cross, according to his catalogue, amounts to approximately 0.004 cubic metres (0.141 cubic feet) (more specifically 3,942,000 cubic millimetres), leaving a volume of 0.174 m3 (6.145 cu ft) lost, destroyed, or otherwise unaccounted for.[27]

Four cross particles – of ten particles with surviving documentary provenances by Byzantine emperors – from European churches, i.e. Santa Croce in Rome, Notre Dame, Paris, Pisa Cathedral and Florence Cathedral, were microscopically examined. "The pieces came all together from olive."[28] It is possible that many alleged pieces of the True Cross are forgeries, created by travelling merchants in the Middle Ages, during which period a thriving trade in manufactured relics existed.[citation needed]

Gerasimos Smyrnakis[29] 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). (For comparison, the collective volume of the largest of these sets of fragments would be equivalent to a cube of a little less than 4 inches per side, while the smallest of these would have an equivalent cubic dimension of about 2.5 inches per side. The volume figures given by Smyrnakis for these objects -- six significant figures and to the cubic millimeter -- are undoubtedly the result of multiplying slightly approximate numbers and should not be seen as implying scientific accuracy of the highest order in a book written over a century ago.)

Fragments of True Cross in Serbian Monastery of Visoki Dečani

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. Another portions of the True Cross is believed to be in the Monasterio de Tarlac at San Jose, Tarlac, Philippines and one at National Shrine of Padre Pio of Pietrelcina in San Pedro, Santo Tomas, Batangas, Philippines.[30]

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church also claims to have the right wing of the true cross buried in the monastery of Gishen Mariam. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church has an annual religious holiday, called Meskel or Demera, commemorating the discovery of the True Cross by Queen Helena. Meskel occurs on 17 Meskerem in the Ethiopian calendar (September 27, Gregorian calendar, or September 28 in leap years). "Meskel" (or "Meskal" or "Mesqel", there are various ways to transliterate from Ge'ez to Latin script) is Ge'ez for "cross".[31]

The festival is known as Feast of the exaltation of the holy cross in other Orthodox, Catholic or Protestant churches. The churches that follow the Gregorian calendar celebrate the feast on September 14

Veneration of the Cross[edit]

St John Chrysostom wrote homilies on the three crosses:

Kings removing their diadems take up the cross, the symbol of their Saviour's death; on the purple, the cross; in their prayers, the cross; on their armour, the cross; on the holy table, the cross; throughout the universe, the cross. The cross shines brighter than the sun.

A relic of the True Cross being carried in procession through the Piazza San Marco, Venice. Gentile Bellini 15th century.

The Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Anglican Communion, and a number of Protestant denominations, 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 Persians 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.[32] 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 Roman Catholic Church in 1970 as part of the liturgical reforms mandated by the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). 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.[33]

In addition to celebrations on fixed days, there are certain days of the variable cycle when the Cross is celebrated. The Roman Catholic Church has a formal 'Adoration of the Cross' (the term is inaccurate, but sanctioned by long use) during the services for Good Friday, while 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.

Photo gallery[edit]

Reliquary of the True Cross at Notre Dame de Paris.

Base of reliquary of the True Cross and nail of the crucifixion. Notre Dame de Paris.

Reliquary of the True Cross and a nail of the crucifixion. Notre Dame de Paris.

Fragment, treasury of the former Premonstratensian Abbey in Rüti in Switzerland.

True Cross at Visoki Dečani, Serbia.

QMRLouis IX's Sainte-Chapelle (1245), built as a reliquary to house the Crown of Thorns and a piece of the True Cross, enclosed within the mid 19th century Palais de Justice.

QMRMeskel (Ge'ez: መሰቀል) is an annual religious holiday in the Ethiopian Orthodox and Eritrean Orthodox Churches commemorating the discovery of the True Cross by Queen Helena (Saint Helena) in the fourth century. Meskel occurs on the 17 Meskerem in the Ethiopian calendar (September 27, Gregorian calendar, or on 28 September in leap years). "Meskel" (or "Meskal" or "Mesqel", there are various ways to transliterate from Ge'ez to Latin script) is Ge'ez for "cross".

The festival is known as Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in other Orthodox, Catholic or Protestant churches. The churches that follow the Gregorian calendar celebrate the feast yearly on September 14.

QMRRelic from the shrine of Saint Boniface of Dokkum in the hermit-church of Warfhuizen: bone fragment in middle is from Saint Boniface; little folded papers on the left and right contain bone fragments of Saint Benedict of Nursia and Bernard of Clairvaux

QMRGrapevine cross of Saint Nino of Georgia (Sioni Cathedral, Tbilisi, Georgia)

QMRRelics of Saint Sabbas the Sanctified in the Catholicon of Mar Saba Monastery in the Kidron Valley

QMRThe Church of the Holy Sepulchre[1] (Latin: ecclesia Sancti Sepulchri; Hebrew: כנסיית הקבר הקדוש, Knesiyyat HaKever HaKadosh), also called the Church of the Resurrection i.e. Church of the Anastasis by Orthodox Christians (Arabic: كنيسة القيامة, kanīssat al Qi'yāma; Armenian: Սուրբ Յարութեան տաճար, Surb Harut’ian tačar; Greek: Ναός της Αναστάσεως, Naós tēs Anastáseōs), is a church within the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. It is a few steps away from the Muristan.

The church contains, according to traditions dating back at least to the fourth century, the two holiest sites in Christendom: the site where Jesus of Nazareth was crucified,[2] known as "Calvary" in Latin and "Golgotha" in Greek,[3] and Jesus's empty tomb, where he is said to have been buried and resurrected. Within the church proper are the last four (or, by some definitions, five) Stations of the Via Dolorosa, representing the final episodes of Jesus' Passion. The church has been a major Christian pilgrimage destination since its creation in the fourth century, as the traditional site of the Resurrection of Christ, thus its original Greek name, Church of the Anastasis.

QMRThe Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem (Latin: Basilica Sanctae Crucis in Hierusalem, Italian: Basilica di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme) is a Roman Catholic minor basilica and titular church in rione Esquilino, Rome, Italy.

QMRThe Ball and the Cross is a novel by G. K. Chesterton. The title refers to a more worldly and rationalist worldview, represented by a ball or sphere, and the cross representing Christianity. The first chapters of the book were serialized from 1905 to 1906[1] with the completed work published in 1909. The novel's beginning involves debates about rationalism and religion between a Professor Lucifer and a monk named Michael. A part of this section was quoted in Pope John Paul I's Illustrissimi letter to G. K. Chesterton.[2] Much of the rest of the book concerns the dueling, figurative and somewhat more literal, of a Jacobite Catholic named Maclan and an atheist Socialist named Turnbull.[3] Lynette Hunter has argued that the novel is more sympathetic to Maclan, but does indicate Maclan is also presented as in some ways too extreme.[4] Turnbull, as well, is presented in a sympathetic light: both duelists are ready to fight for and die for their antagonistic opinions and, in doing so, develop a certain partnership that evolves into a friendship. The real antagonist is the world outside, which desperately tries to prevent from happening a duel over "mere religion" (a subject both duelists judge of utmost importance).

QMRThe thurible (Greek: Θυμιατο, Thymiato; Church Slavonic: Кадилница, kadilnitsa) used is often gold plated (combining in itself at the offering of incense the three gifts of the Biblical Magi: gold, frankincense, and myrrh). The thurible consists of a metal bowl (usually with a base so it can stand upright) into which the charcoal and incense are placed, and a lid (often topped with a cross), pierced by holes to allow the fragrance from the incense to escape. The censer will usually have three outer chains (for the Holy Trinity) attached to the bowl, and a fourth inner chain (for the Oneness of God) attached to the lid. The three outer chains are gathered together and attached to a round conical plate attached to a ring; the inner chain passes through a hole in the conical plate and is attached to another ring to make it easier to lift the lid. In the Greek and some Russian practice twelve bells will be attached to the chains (their ringing symbolizes the teaching of the twelve Apostles).[1] Sometimes the bowl and lid of the thurible are decorated with crosses or icons in repousse, and may even be decorated with semi-precious stones. When not in use the thurible is usually hung from a hook in the sanctuary.

The fourth square is always different.

When censing, the priest or deacon holds the censer below the conical plate with only one hand (the right hand) allowing it to swing freely. He will make the Sign of the Cross with the censer by making two vertical swings and a third horizontal swing (the three swings together symbolizing the Holy Trinity).

QMRThe sign of the cross (Latin: signum crucis), or blessing oneself or crossing oneself, is a ritual blessing made by members of some branches of Christianity. This blessing is made by the tracing of an upright cross or + across the body with the right hand, often accompanied by spoken or mental recitation of the trinitarian formula.

Gold coin made under the rule of Emperor Justinian II. (Byzantium. 7th century.)

The motion is the tracing of the shape of a cross in the air or on one's own body, echoing the traditional shape of the cross of the Christian Crucifixion narrative. There are two principal forms: the one—three fingers, right to left—is exclusively used in the Eastern Orthodox churches and the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church of the Byzantine and Chaldean Tradition; the other—left to right, other than three fingers—is the one used in the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, Anglicanism, Methodism, Lutheranism and Oriental Orthodoxy (see below). The ritual is rare within other Christian traditions.

Many individuals use the expression "cross my heart and hope to die" as an oath, making the sign of the cross, in order to show "truthfulness and sincerity" in both personal and legal situations.[1

QMRThe flag of Vatican City was adopted on June 7, 1929, the year Pope Pius XI signed the Lateran Treaty with Italy, creating a new independent state governed by the Holy See. The Vatican flag is modeled on the flag of the earlier Papal States. The Vatican (and the Holy See) also refer to it, interchangeably, as "flag of the Holy See".[1]

Contents [hide]

1 The flag

2 Usage

3 History

4 See also

5 References

6 External links

The flag[edit]

The flag consists of two vertical bands, one of gold or yellow (hoist side) and one of white with the crossed keys of Saint Peter and the Papal Tiara centered in the white band. The crossed keys consist of a golden and a silver key, in which the silver key is placed in the dexter position. The flag is one of only two square country flags in the world, the other being the flag of Switzerland.

The crossed keys are a cross

QMR

The nature of the quadrant model is the first three squares are connected. The fourth is always different and transcendent (yet contains the previous three)

There have four major relics that are claimed to be the Holy Lance or parts of it. The Holy Lance is the lance that punctured Jesus during the crucifixion.

Rome[edit]

A mitred Adhémar de Monteil carrying one of the instances of the Holy Lance in one of the battles of the First Crusade

The Holy Lance in Rome is preserved beneath the dome of Saint Peter's Basilica, although the Catholic Church makes no claim as to its authenticity. The first historical reference to the lance was made by the pilgrim Antoninus of Piacenza (AD 570) in his descriptions of the holy places of Jerusalem, writing that he saw in the Basilica of Mount Zion "the crown of thorns with which Our Lord was crowned and the lance with which He was struck in the side".[2] A mention of the lance occurs in the so-called Breviarius at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The presence in Jerusalem of the relic is attested by Cassiodorus (c. 485–585)[3][4] as well as by Gregory of Tours (c. 538–594), who had not actually been to Jerusalem.

In 615, Jerusalem and its relics were captured by the Persian forces of King Khosrau II (Chosroes II). According to the Chronicon Paschale, the point of the lance, which had been broken off, was given in the same year to Nicetas, who took it to Constantinople and deposited it in the church of Hagia Sophia, and later to the Church of the Virgin of the Pharos. This point of the lance, which was now set in an icon, was acquired by the Latin Emperor, Baldwin II of Constantinople, who later sold it to Louis IX of France. The point of the lance was then enshrined with the crown of thorns in the Sainte Chapelle in Paris. During the French Revolution these relics were removed to the Bibliothèque Nationale but subsequently disappeared.[5] (The present "Crown of Thorns" is a wreath of rushes.)

The statue of St Longinus by Gianlorenzo Bernini sits above the relic in St Peter's Basilica

As for the larger portion of the lance, Arculpus claimed he saw it at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre around 670 in Jerusalem, but there is otherwise no mention of it after the sack in 615. Some claim that the larger relic had been conveyed to Constantinople in the 8th century, possibly at the same time as the Crown of Thorns. At any rate, its presence at Constantinople seems to be clearly attested by various pilgrims, particularly Russians, and, though it was deposited in various churches in succession, it seems possible to trace it and distinguish it from the relic of the point. Sir John Mandeville declared in 1357 that he had seen the blade of the Holy Lance both at Paris and at Constantinople, and that the latter was a much larger relic than the former; it is worth adding that Mandeville is not generally regarded as one of the Middle Ages' most reliable witnesses, and his supposed travels are usually treated as an eclectic amalgam of myths, legends and other fictions. "The lance which pierced Our Lord's side" was among the relics at Constantinople shown in the 1430s to Pedro Tafur, who added "God grant that in the overthrow of the Greeks they have not fallen into the hands of the enemies of the Faith, for they will have been ill-treated and handled with little reverence."[6]

Whatever the Constantinople relic was, it did fall into the hands of the Turks, and in 1492, under circumstances minutely described in Pastor's History of the Popes, the Sultan Bayezid II sent it to Pope Innocent VIII to encourage the pope to continue to keep his brother and rival Zizim (Cem Sultan) prisoner. At this time great doubts as to its authenticity were felt at Rome, as Johann Burchard records,[7] because of the presence of other rival lances in Paris (the point that had been separated from the lance), Nuremberg (see Holy Lance in Vienna below), and Armenia (see Holy Lance in Echmiadzin below). In the mid-18th century Pope Benedict XIV states that he obtained from Paris an exact drawing of the point of the lance, and that in comparing it with the larger relic in St. Peter's he was satisfied that the two had originally formed one blade.[8] This relic has never since left Rome, and its resting place is at Saint Peter's.

Vienna[edit]

The Holy Lance, displayed in the Imperial Treasury at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria

The Holy Lance in Vienna is displayed in the Imperial Treasury or Weltliche Schatzkammer (lit. Secular Treasure Room) at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria. In the tenth century, the Holy Roman Emperors came into possession of the lance, according to sources from the time of Otto I (912–973). In 1000, Otto III gave Boleslaw I of Poland a replica of the Holy Lance at the Congress of Gniezno. In 1084, Henry IV had a silver band with the inscription "Nail of Our Lord" added to it. This was based on the belief that this was the lance of Constantine the Great which enshrined a nail used for the Crucifixion.

In 1273, the Holy Lance was first used in a coronation ceremony. Around 1350, Charles IV had a golden sleeve put over the silver one, inscribed Lancea et clavus Domini (Lance and nail of the Lord). In 1424, Sigismund had a collection of relics, including the lance, moved from his capital in Prague to his birthplace, Nuremberg, and decreed them to be kept there forever. This collection was called the Imperial Regalia (Reichskleinodien).

When the French Revolutionary army approached Nuremberg in the spring of 1796 the city councilors decided to remove the Reichskleinodien to Vienna for safe keeping. The collection was entrusted to one "Baron von Hügel", who promised to return the objects as soon as peace had been restored and the safety of the collection assured.[citation needed] However, the Holy Roman Empire was disbanded in 1806 and the Reichskleinodien remained in the keeping of the Habsburgs. When the city councilors asked for the Reichskleinodien back, they were refused. As part of the imperial regalia it was kept in the Imperial Treasury and was known as the lance of Saint Maurice.

During the Anschluss, when Austria was annexed to Germany, the Reichskleinodien were returned to Nuremberg and afterwards hidden. They were found by invading U.S. troops and returned to Austria by American General George S. Patton after World War II.

The inscription on the Holy Lance

Dr. Robert Feather, an English metallurgist and technical engineering writer, tested the lance for a documentary in January 2003.[9] He was given unprecedented permission not only to examine the lance in a laboratory environment, but was allowed to remove the delicate bands of gold and silver that hold it together. In the opinion of Feather and other academic experts, the likeliest date of the spearhead is the 7th century A.D. – only slightly earlier than the Museum's own estimate. However, Dr. Feather stated in the same documentary that an iron pin – long claimed to be a nail from the crucifixion, hammered into the blade and set off by tiny brass crosses – is "consistent" in length and shape with a 1st-century A.D. Roman nail. According to Paul the Deacon, the Lombard royal line bore the name of the Gungingi,[10] which Karl Hauck[11] and Stefano Gasparri[12] maintain identified them with the name of Odin’s lance, Gungnir (a sign that they probably claimed descent from Odin, as did most of the Germanic royal lines). Paul the Deacon notes[13] that the inauguration rite of a Lombard king consisted essentially of his grasping of a sacred/royal lance. Milan, which had been the capital of the Western Roman Empire in the time of Constantine, was the capital of the Lombard kings Perctarit and his son Cunipert, who became Catholic Christians in the 7th century. Thus it seems possible that the iron point of the Lombardic royal lance might have been recast in the 7th century in order to enshrine one of the 1st-century Roman nails that St. Helena was reputed to have found at Calvary and brought to Milan, thus giving a more Christian sacred aura to the old pagan royal lance. If Charlemagne’s inauguration as the King of the Lombards in 774 had likewise included his grasping of this Christian sacred lance or royal lance, this would explain how it would have eventually become the oldest item in the German imperial regalia. The Iron Crown of Lombardy (dated to the 8th century), which eventually became the primary symbol of Lombardic kingship, takes its name from the tradition that it contains one of the holy nails. Gregory of Tours in his Libri Historiarum VII, 33, states that in 585 the Merovingian king Guntram designated his nephew Childebert II his heir by handing him his lance; it is possible that a royal lance was a symbol of kingship among the Merovingian kings and that a nail from Calvary was in the 7th century incorporated into this royal lance and thus eventually would have come into the German imperial regalia.

Echmiadzin[edit]

The Holy Lance in Echmiadzin

The Holy Lance in Echmiadzin (Armenian: Geghard) is conserved in Vagharshapat, Armenia (Echmiadzin), the religious capital of the country. The first source that mentions it is a text Holy Relics of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in a thirteenth-century Armenian manuscript. According to this text, the spear which pierced Jesus was to have been brought to Armenia by the Apostle Thaddeus. The manuscript does not specify precisely where it was kept, but the Holy Lance gives a description that exactly matches the lance, the monastery gate, since the thirteenth century precisely, the name of Geghardavank (Monastery of the Holy Lance).[clarification needed]

In 1655, the French traveler Jean-Baptiste Tavernier was the first Westerner to see this relic in Armenia. In 1805, the Russians captured the monastery and the relic was moved to Tchitchanov Geghard, Tbilisi, Georgia. It was later returned to Armenia at Echmiadzin, where it is always visible in the museum Manoogian, enshrined in a 17th-century reliquary.

Antioch[edit]

During the June 1098 Siege of Antioch, a poor monk named Peter Bartholomew reported that he had a vision in which St. Andrew told him that the Holy Lance was buried in the Church of St. Peter in Antioch. After much digging in the cathedral, Peter apparently discovered a lance. Despite the doubts of many, including the papal legate Adhemar of Le Puy, the discovery of the Holy Lance of Antioch inspired the starving Crusaders to break the siege and secure the city.

Islam Chapter

Hinduism Chapter

Judaism Chapter

QMRThe picture of Gehenna as the place of punishment or destruction of the wicked occurs frequently in the Mishnah in Kiddushin 4.14, Avot 1.5; 5.19, 20, Tosefta t. Bereshith 6.15, and Babylonian Talmud b.Rosh Hashanah 16b:7a; b. Bereshith 28b. Gehenna is considered a Purgatory-like place where the wicked go to suffer until they have atoned for their sins. It is stated that the maximum amount of time a sinner can spend in Gehenna is one year. There are also four people who do not get a share in Olam Ha-Ba.[19] Those people are Doeg the Edomite, Ahitophel, Balaam, and Gehazi.

QMRGehazi, Geichazi, or Giezi (Douay-Rheims) (Hebrew: גֵּיחֲזִי; Tiberian: Gêḥăzî; Standard: Geẖazi; "valley of vision") is a figure found in the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible. As a servant of Elisha he was in a position of power but he was corrupt, and misused his authority and cheated Naaman the Syrian, a leper. As a punishment, Elisha cursed him, transferring Naaman's leprosy to him and his descendants for ever. In Rabbinic Literature, Gehazi is identified as one of four commoners who forfeited his share in the afterlife because of his wickedness. He is the subject of a poem by Rudyard Kipling.

QMRIn the theology of the Catholic Church, Limbo (Latin limbus, edge or boundary, referring to the "edge" of Hell) is a speculative idea about the afterlife condition of those who die in original sin without being assigned to the Hell of the Damned. Medieval theologians of western Europe described the underworld ("hell", "hades", "infernum") as divided into four distinct parts: Hell of the Damned,[2] Purgatory, Limbo of the Fathers or Patriarchs, and Limbo of the Infants. However, Limbo of the Infants is not an official doctrine of the Catholic Church.

QMRA monde, meaning "world" in French, is an orb located near the top of a crown. Representing, as the name suggest, the world that the king rules. The only thing that can traditionally be placed above the monde is the Christian cross representing God.

It is the point at which a crown's half arches meet. It is usually topped off either with a national or religious symbol, for example a cross in Christian countries.