The cross is a humanly and godly sign. It’s a humanly sign because the man was fashioned since the beginning following the mould of the cross. As a tool of torture and death, the cross became both the symbol of pain and death. After Jesus Christ was crucified on it, the cross became a holy sign, the symbol of the Son of Man, a sign of victory, joy and life. This is the reason why the Church has a chant saying “Lord, by your cross and resurrection, you have set us free” (Sunday Vesper, voice 7). The two meanings are used together, in the worldly life these two crosses make up the Cross of our Salvation, the Cross that all Christians must bear and follow their Christ as the Lord said ““If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).

Seen from a human point of view the cross means diligence, suffering and fighting the evil and since all these cannot be avoided in the present life, neither the cross be avoided. All men must bear their cross. Death is the price of sin, the cross of atonement and suffering is natural in this age. Through His suffering, God our Saviour has opened a new perspective of the Cross: sufferance, but not so much the sufferance of death as the sufferance of life. The little suffering of the Cross will absolve us from the eternity of death. This is the reason why Christ was longing for the cross and the martyrs were seeking the pain, because they knew that “the sufferings in this life are not worthy of the glory that shall be revealed to us” (Romans 9:18).

From a divine point of view, the Cross is the symbol of the Son of Man, His sceptre, sign of power and protection, a sign of victory against death and evil, “an invincible weapon”, “life and resurrection”. “Oh Lord, great is the power of your Cross”, the Church marvels. 

(Translated from Protosinghel Petroniu Tănase, Ușile pocăinței, meditații duhovnicești la vremea Triodului, Editura Mitropoliei Moldovei și Bucovinei, Iași, 1994, p. 73)