The Veneration of the Cross in Jerusalem: An Early Pilgrim’s Account

About half a century after Helena made her famous trip to Palestine, another female pilgrim headed east: Egeria, a Roman citizen from the western provinces, kept a careful journal of her trip. Unfortunately, only about a third of her text remains; the only extant copy, discovered in Italy in the late 19th century, is missing the beginning and ending. Thus, we lack some very basic information about the author, including where she came from and what year she began her journey. What we do have is a remarkably detailed account of her three-year stay in Jerusalem and her trips to Alexandria, the Sinai and Constantinople.

Having arrived in Jerusalem just before Easter, Egeria gives a day-by-day description of the Holy Week festivities at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Significantly, Egeria—like our other early sources—never mentions Helena in connection with the church. But she does emphasize the importance of the relics of the cross to the Jerusalem church. According to Egeria, the Friday of Holy Week was reserved for the veneration of the relics of the cross, which were carefully guarded by the bishop and his deacons:

Then a chair is placed for the bishop in Golgotha behind the cross (the cross that is now standing); the bishop duly takes his seat in the chair, and a table covered with a linen cloth is placed before him; the deacons stand round the table, and a silver-gilt casket is brought in which is the holy wood of the cross. The casket is opened and [the wood] is taken out, and both the wood of the cross and the titulus are placed upon the table.