A feast of the Cross

The Exaltation of the Holy Cross

The Church remembers how St Helen found the Cross of the Lord in Jerusalem and how it was lifted up before the people. For Orthodox Christians the Cross is no ornament but “the guardian of the whole world,” the weapon by which Christ conquered death.

The dates

Kept on: 14 September (27 September on the Old Calendar)
Next, New Calendar: 14 September 2027
Next, Old Calendar: 27 September 2027

The New Calendar (the Greek, Antiochian, Romanian and Bulgarian churches, the OCA and most converts) keeps fixed feasts on the church date; the Old Calendar (the Russian, Serbian and Georgian churches, Jerusalem and Mount Athos) keeps them 13 days later. Pascha and the feasts that follow it are kept on the same day by both.

How the day is kept

Though it is a great feast, the day is kept with a strict fast.

An Orthodox Christian receives a cross at baptism and wears it for life. Russian crosses are usually eight-pointed, with a short prayer for protection engraved on the back; Greek baptismal crosses are usually four-pointed and plain.

The Cross is honored again at the Procession of the Wood of the Cross, once carried through Constantinople against sickness, and in the middle of Great Lent, when it is brought out into the middle of the church for the faithful to venerate.

In Greek custom every Stavros and Stavroula keeps the name day on this feast.