The Tree of the Holy Cross and the site where it grew are sanctified in ecclesiastical sources. In legends and ancient tradition they are linked back to the biblical patriarch Abraham or earlier still to Seth, the son of Adam, planting a twig by his father’s tomb.
The legend recounts that the three Angels who visited Abraham (Genesis 18) left him their staffs before proceeding to Sodom. After Lot sinned with his daughters at Sodom, he confessed to Abraham who instructed him to plant the staffs in the environs of Jerusalem and give them water from the Jordan River – their blossoming would signify that God accepted his penance.
Lot planted the staffs in the valley outside Jerusalem where the Monastery of the Cross stands today. His unceasing attempts to haul water from the Jordan were stymied by Satan for 40 years before he finally managed to water the staffs, and they immediately blossomed and grew into a triplet pine/cypress/cedar Tree. During King Solomon’s reign, the Tree was felled for timber in the building of the Judaic Temple, however, the beams would fit nowhere and were cast aside as cursed – the very ones that would make Jesus Christ’s Cross in later times.
The Fathers Speak…
Abba John used to say that the saints are like a group of trees, each bearing different fruit, but all watered from the same source. The practices of one saint differ from those of another, but it is the same Spirit that works in all of them.
- The Desert Fathers
Blessed is the one who knows his own weakness, because awareness of this becomes for him the foundation and beginning of all that is good and beautiful. Love sinners but hate their works; and do not despise them for their faults, lest you also be tempted.
- St. Isaac the Syrian
The legend recounts that the three Angels who visited Abraham (Genesis 18) left him their staffs before proceeding to Sodom. After Lot sinned with his daughters at Sodom, he confessed to Abraham who instructed him to plant the staffs in the environs of Jerusalem and give them water from the Jordan River – their blossoming would signify that God accepted his penance.
Lot planted the staffs in the valley outside Jerusalem where the Monastery of the Cross stands today. His unceasing attempts to haul water from the Jordan were stymied by Satan for 40 years before he finally managed to water the staffs, and they immediately blossomed and grew into a triplet pine/cypress/cedar Tree. During King Solomon’s reign, the Tree was felled for timber in the building of the Judaic Temple, however, the beams would fit nowhere and were cast aside as cursed – the very ones that would make Jesus Christ’s Cross in later times.The Fathers Speak…
Abba John used to say that the saints are like a group of trees, each bearing different fruit, but all watered from the same source. The practices of one saint differ from those of another, but it is the same Spirit that works in all of them.
- The Desert Fathers
Blessed is the one who knows his own weakness, because awareness of this becomes for him the foundation and beginning of all that is good and beautiful. Love sinners but hate their works; and do not despise them for their faults, lest you also be tempted.
- St. Isaac the Syrian
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