Sunday of the Holy Cross

The weekend of the Sunday of the Holy Cross was a very busy weekend for me. First of all, we had Vigil on Saturday evening and we brought out the Cross for veneration. We venerate the Cross, not worship it. We respect it. The Cross reminds us of our salvation.

The next day we had Divine Liturgy in the morning, as usually. Every Sunday is a Little Easter Sunday in the Orthodox Church and every Sunday we celebrate the Eucharists as the Apostles did in the first century.

After the Liturgy I went over to "Greektown" for the Greek Independence Day Parade. Although the parade is during Lent, it is important for us as Americans to realize that freedom is not free and every country which enjoys freedom today does so because of the men and women who gave up their lives for freedom.

That evening I was back at the church for our Passion Vespers. Aftaer that we had a lenten reception at the church.

The Greek Independence Day Parade and Passion Vespers are discussed on other pages on this site.

For this Sunday I wore dark red. The tradition that has been handed down to me is to wear purple during Lent and at the half-way point, the Sunday of the Cross, to wear dark red. In my former life, we would wear rose on the Third Sunday of Lent, but we did not bring out the Cross. In either case, we knew that we are at the half way mark.

Wear dark red was special to me because the vestments were made in love by two different women. A woman in Poland made my stole and cuffs and a woman in Virginia made the robe. I was at her parish and talking about my collection of vestments and mentioned the problem that I am having in finding dark red. So she made the robe for me and sent it Federal Express and it arrived on Christmas Eve. Fr. Michael Roshak blessed it two days later when I went back down there.

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