On the 3rd Sunday of Great Lent, when the Orthodox Church celebrates the Veneration of the Holy and Life-Giving Cross, Metropoltian Vladimir of Chisinau and all Moldova officiated the Divine Liturgy in the Nativity of the Lord Cathedral in Chisinau.
After three weeks of Fast, the Holy Church exalts today the sign of Victory, the sign of the Holy and Life-Giving Cross, in order to strengthen and support its children, reminding them about the passions of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. At the same time, the Feast of the Cross appears as comforting of the faithful in the ascetic doing and spiritual work during the Fast of the Resurrection of the Lord.
The Cross does not mean only suffering, but also victory and triumph: “We can see in today’s short Gospel reading that the core of our life should be Christ the merciful, the Crucified one, and the Risen one, while the presence of His merciful love in our life raises us from sin and sickness, and heals us”.
We learn that the Holy Cross is a source of renovation, is bitter remedy, offered to all those who want to be saved from death: “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Mark 8: 34).
Synodal Sector of Institutional Communication and Mass-Media Relations