On the Third Sunday of the Great Lent, the Sunday of the Holy Cross, the Divine Liturgy in the Nativity of the Lord Metropolitan Cathedral in Chisinau was celebrated by Vicar Bishop Siluan of Orhei, with the blessing of Metropolitan Vladimir of Chisinau and All Moldova.
After three weeks of Great Lent, our Orthodox Church celebrates today the Sunday of the Holy Cross, in sign of victory of the sign of our Lord Jesus Christ over darkness and death. In this victory, Christ transformed the Holy Cross from an instrument of torture and shameful punishment into life-giving ladder uniting the earth with the Heavenly Kingdom. Through Christ’s suffering on the cross, death, and resurrection from the dead, the Holy Cross was made a bridge to the life eternal, dismissing the killing effect of death. Death itself became thus a door to life.
During today’s Liturgy, of St. Basil the Great, Bishop Siluan and the Cathedral clergy prayed along with numerous church-goers gathered in the holy shrine, for the Christians to become worthy of bearing Lord Jesus’ Life-Giving Cross that liberates and protects the humanity from evil and plants spiritual virtues, offering hope and way to the life eternal.
Bishop Siluan mentioned in the guidance message after the service that cross bearing means not only suffering, but also victory and spiritual joy, triumph.
Synodal Sector of Institutional Communication and Mass-Media Relations