Encaenia, That Is, the Commemoration of the Renewal of the Holy Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Jerusalem (335)
Encaenia, that is, the commemoration of the renewal of the holy Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Jerusalem. On this day the Church celebrates the consecration of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ built by Constantine the Great, equal to the apostles, and his mother, the Empress Helena, equal to the apostles.
In the year 70 the Roman emperor Titus (42–72) conquered Jerusalem, sacked it, and so destroyed the Temple of Solomon standing on Mount Moriah that, according to the Saviour’s prophecy (Mark 13:1–2), he left not one stone upon another. Later the Emperor Hadrian (117–138), on the site of the Jerusalem laid waste by Titus, built a new city, which he called by his own name, Aelia Hadriana, and forbade it to be called by its old name. The Lord’s tomb was covered with earth and stones and an idol of Jupiter was set on top of it; on Golgotha, the place of Christ’s crucifixion, a pagan temple of Venus was built in 119. Before the statue of the goddess abominable sacrifices were performed, accompanied by foul orgies. In Bethlehem, at the place where the Saviour was born of the All-holy Virgin, the lawless king set up an idol of Adonis. All this was done with deliberate intent: they wished to drive Christ the Saviour entirely out of people’s minds, and to make them forget even the places where He had lived, preached, suffered, died and risen in glory.
Constantine the Great, equal to the apostles (306–337), the first of the Roman emperors to recognise the Christian religion, together with his mother, the pious Empress Helena, resolved to renew the city of Jerusalem: to build a new church where Christ had suffered and risen, and to clear the places connected with the memory of the Saviour of pagan cult buildings and consecrate them anew. The Empress Helena set out for Jerusalem. Constantine sent with her a letter to Patriarch Macarius I (313–323), in which he asked that the work of renewing the Christian holy places be furthered in every way. In the holy city the empress, equal to the apostles, destroyed all the idols and pagan temples and had the defiled places consecrated. Burning with the desire to find the Cross of Jesus Christ, Helena had the foundations of the ruined temple of Venus dug up. There they came upon the Saviour’s filled-in tomb and the Place of the Skull, near which three crosses and the nails were discovered. Among these crosses the Life-giving Cross of the Lord was miraculously distinguished, and Patriarch Macarius, accompanied by other clergy, raised it up for the countless people gathered there to see (see the reading for 14 September).
The holy empress at once began building a great church that was to take in Golgotha and the Saviour’s tomb. As John the Evangelist testifies, these two places lay close to each other (John 19:41–42). The Church of the Resurrection took ten years to build. Saint Helena (+327) did not live to see it finished. While in Jerusalem the pious empress built churches in Bethlehem, on the Mount of Olives, in Gethsemane, and at many other places connected with the Saviour’s earthly life and with the events of the Old Testament.
The completion of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ, named the “Martyrion” in remembrance of the Saviour’s Passion on the Cross, coincided with the First Council of Tyre and with the thirtieth anniversary of the reign of the Emperor Constantine the Great, equal to the apostles. For this reason the dedication performed on 13 September 335 was especially solemn.
