Feasts of the cross?

kimi1

Hi all,

Now I kjnow that there are 2 feasts of the cross in the coptic church. Can someone lead me to any online info or your own personal info why as a church we celebrate both and not one or the other, ad the significance behind wach feast.

Your help in the matter will be greatly appreciated

Please pray for my weakness and GBU all

Kimi  :)

mark458

The first feast I believe is to commemorate the finding of the cross by Queen Helena and King Constantine and the other I cannot remember at the moment.

LondonCopt

This might help:

On 17 Thoout, the Church commemorates the discovery of the Holy Cross, the cross on which Christ was crucified, by Queen Helen - the mother of Emperor Constantine. It was on this day that she ordered the Cross to be dug from under the rubble of Golgotha in the year 326 A.D.

The celebration on 10 Paramhotep commemorates the appearance of the Holy Cross during the reign Emperor Hercules (Heracle). Upon defeating the Persians and forcing them out of Egypt, a prince stole the Holy Cross from its Church as his army returned to Persia. The prince hid the Cross in a box, dug a deep hole, and kept the Cross in it. When Hercules heard the news, he gathered his army and headed to Persia, defeating them once again. He was successful in finding the Cross, and returned it to Constantinople in the year 629 A.D.

It is important to note that the feast on 17 Thoout is three days long, while the second feast of 10 Paramhotep is celebrated on that day only. Furthermore, if any of these feasts were to come on a Sunday, the readings for the feast are read instead of those assigned for that day, as the Feast of the Cross is treated as one of the major feasts of the Lord.