From 614 to 628, the Venerable Tree was captured by the Persians. God's Providence preserved the Tree even there, in a foreign land. The pagans, amazed by the miracles that accompanied the ark with the Cross, did not dare to boldly touch the Christian shrine. The victory of the Greek Emperor Heraclius over the Persians returned the Cross to Jerusalem. Both the return of the Cross and its elevation over the Holy Sepulchre took place precisely on the day of the feast of the Exaltation of the Life-Giving Wood of the Cross of the Lord.

Thus, my beloved, three events of different times from the life of the Cross of the Lord illuminate this day. And I repeat as a reminder to you – this is the discovery of the Tree of the Cross, and the construction of the Church of the Resurrection of the Lord on Golgotha, and the bringing of the Life-Giving Cross into this church, and the last return of the Life-Giving Tree from captivity and its installation on Golgotha, in its original place.

Twenty centuries have passed since the greatest event of the Savior's sacrifice on the cross on Golgotha, when Christ ascended to heaven in glory. The Cross remained on earth, continuing to do the great work begun on Golgotha. And to this day the Cross lives as a living person, as a human being, taking upon itself both boundless love and equally boundless hatred.

And just as love and malice, faithfulness and betrayal confronted each other at the first Saving Cross of the Lord, so the Cross is destined to be a stumbling block at all times in the life of the world. For some, the atheists, it is a cruel and hateful field of suffering, leading to death. Sorrows and sufferings of earthly life are the lot of all earth-born. For others, the followers of Christ, the cross of the same sorrows and sufferings becomes a favorite field of supreme spiritual delight, a path of marching after the beloved Christ into eternal life to glory.

The Cross continues to live in the world, some for salvation, others for greater destruction. The struggle between evil and good at the foot of the Cross continues for the sake of love or hatred for the One by Whom the Wood of the Cross was sanctified.

Let us not go into the depths of history for examples, let us take living examples of our days. What malice and rejection of the Cross are now manifested by all those who have departed from the Orthodox Church of Christ, and especially by Protestants and sectarians, who blaspheme the Cross of Christ, our sign of the Cross, and accuse the Orthodox of idolatry for venerating the Cross. The Cross is the guardian of the entire universe, the Cross is the guardian and affirmation of each person in the truth – for them does not exist.

And with the rejection of the Cross, they reject the very path of salvation, the path of the procession following Christ. And they become the plaything of demons on the way to perdition.