Site Map

Contact Fr. Gregory

© Copyright - material in this site may not be reproduced in any media without the express permission of the Web Master.

Care has been taken by this site to ensure that all necessary copyright permissions have been obtained. If this is not the case in any instance, this is an inadvertent error. Please contact the Web Master and this will be rectified.

Disclaimer & Credits

A Word from the Fathers

On the Holy Cross

How precious is the gift of the Cross!
See, how beautiful it is to behold!
It shows no sign of evil mixed with good, like the tree of old in Eden;
it is all beautiful and comely to see and to taste.

For it is a tree which brings forth life, not death.
It is the source of light, not darkness. It offers you a home in Eden. It does not cast you out.
It is the tree which Christ mounted as a king his chariot, and so destroyed the devil,
the lord of death, and rescued the human race from slavery to the tyrant.

It is the tree on which the Lord, like a great warrior with his hands and feet and his divine side pierced in battle, healed the wounds of our sins, healed our nature that had been wounded by the evil serpent.

Of old we were poisoned by a tree; now we have found immortality through a tree.
Of old we were led astray by a tree; now we have repelled the treacherous snake by means of a tree.
Indeed an unheard of exchange! We are given life instead of death, incorruptibility instead of corruption, glory instead of dishonour.

How right Paul is to exclaim:

'Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world!'

For that supreme wisdom, which flowered on the cross, proved that the proud boasting of worldly wisdom was folly.

The beauty of all the good gifts which grew on the cross cut out the shoots of evil.

St Theodore the Studite (759-826)

return to Teaching Archive page