The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross is celebrated to commemorate the recovering of a portion of the Holy Cross which was preserved at Jerusalem and had fallen to the hands of the Persians. Emperor Heraclius recovered this precious relic and brought it back to Jerusalem in 629. History goes back to the fourth century when St. Helena, mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, went to Jerusalem in search of the holy places of Christ’s life. She razed the Temple of Aphrodite, which tradition held was built over the Savior’s tomb, and her son built the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher over the tomb. During the excavation, workers found three crosses. Legend has it that the one on which Jesus died was identified when its touch healed a dying woman. From that moment the cross became an object of veneration as part of Good Friday.
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