On March 31, the Patriarchate of Jerusalem celebrated the Sunday of the Adoration of the Precious and Life-giving Cross, for the encouragement of the faithful, so that they may continue the difficult period of the fast towards the Holy Pascha.
Great Vespers of Parresia was held at the Catholicon of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, officiated by Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos, with co-celebrant the Archbishops in the Holy Altar and the Hagiotaphite Hieromonks and deacons, at the chanting of the Choir Leader of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre Constantinos Spyropoulos. The service was attended by a congregation of local faithful and pilgrims.
On the day of the feast, the Divine Liturgy was celebrated at the Life-giving Tomb of the Lord, officiated by Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos, with co-celebrants Archbishops of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Most Reverend Metropolitan Emanuel of France, and the Most Reverend Metropolitan Amphilohios of Andrianoupolis, the Archbishops of the Hagiotaphite Brotherhood, Most Reverend Metropolitan Isychios of Kapitolias, the Most Reverend Archbishops; Aristarchos of Constantina, Demetrios of Lydda, Nectarios of Anthedon, the Most Reverend Metropolitan Joachim of Helenoupolis. Also Hagiotaphite Hieromonks, with first in rank Elder Kamarasis Archimandrite Nectaries. Present at the service was the Consul General of Greece Mr. Christos Sophianopoulos, along with a large congregation.
The Divine Liturgy was followed by a litany, three times around the All-holy Tomb and around the shrines, with the veneration of the Precious Cross with the Precious Wood.
The return at the Patriarchate Headquarters followed, where Patriarch Theophilos stressed -among others- that “today my beloved brothers and sisters, day of the veneration of the precious cross, we came to the place of skull, in Golgotha, where our Lord Jesus Christ offered for us His salvific Passion but also His life-giving resurrection and by the Eucharistic Divine Doxology we became participants and communicants of the joy and the power of the wood of life, of the Cross”.
SOURCE: en.jerusalem-patriarchate.info
