On
the Worship of the Lord’s Cross
We worship Christ’s humanity
because of the Godhead in Him; so, through the Cross, we worship God our
Savior. The Cross is the name of Christ, being equivalent to our saying the
killed, the worshipped, and does not designate wood, silver, or brass. Now the
great foundation of Christianity is the confession that through the Cross
renewal and universal salvation were obtained for all, and that Cross which we
use is the same sign of our Lord as is to appear in the heavens before His
advent, as He Himself has foretold. When, therefore, we look upon this emblem of
our salvation, we conceive as though we were beholding our Savior outstretched
upon it for the remission of our sins, and for the renewal of all creation.
Hence we offer a fervent and grateful worship, not to the fashioned matter of
the Cross; but to Him whom we figure as upon it, and above all to God, who gave
His Son to be a Cross (i.e., crucified) for us, through whose crucifixion He
wrought our renewal and salvation for us, and through Whom He gives us though
being unworthy everlasting life in the kingdom of heaven. “For if when we were
yet enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, how much more
being reconciled we shall be saved by His life.”
By this sign the holy Apostles
wrought miracles and the laying on of hands for the Priesthood, and all the
other Sacraments of the Church were perfected thereby. And these things handed
down from the Apostles to those who succeeded them were confirmed, and so they
taught hem to declare “for the preaching of the Cross is to those that have
gone astray foolishness; but to us who are saved it is the power of God.” (Mar
O’Dishoo, Metropolitan of Suwa (‘Nisidin) and Armenia, The Book of
Marganitha (The Pearl) On the Truth of Christianity [trans. Mar Eshai
Shimun XXIII, Catholicos Patriarch of the East; Xlibris: 2007], 59)
