page_title: True Cross
section_title: Fatimids, Crusaders and loss of the Cross
hierarchical_section_title: True Cross / The relics of the Cross in Jerusalem / Fatimids, Crusaders and loss of the Cross
caption_attribution_description: Treasure Room, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem. In center: the True Cross. Near the walls: holy relics.
context_page_description: The True Cross is the name for physical remnants which, by the tradition of some Christian churches, are said to be from the cross upon which Jesus was crucified.
  According to post-Nicene historians such as Socrates of Constantinople, Empress Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine, the first Christian emperor of Rome, travelled to the Holy Land in 326–328, founding churches and establishing relief agencies for the poor. Historians Gelasius of Caesarea and Rufinus claimed that she discovered the hiding place of three crosses that were believed to have been used at the crucifixion of Jesus and the two thieves, St. Dismas and Gestas, executed with him. To one cross was affixed the titulus bearing Jesus's name, but Helena was not sure until a miracle revealed that this was the True Cross.
  Many churches possess fragmentary remains that are by tradition alleged to be those of the True Cross. While the bulk of Roman Catholic and Orthodox believers recognize them as genuine pieces of the cross of Christ, their authenticity is disputed by other Christians, mainly Protestants.
context_section_description: Around 1009, the year in which Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Christians in Jerusalem hid part of the cross and it remained hidden until the city was taken by the European soldiers of the First Crusade. Arnulf Malecorne, the first Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, had the Greek Orthodox priests who were in possession of the Cross tortured in order to reveal its location. The relic that Arnulf discovered was a small fragment of wood embedded in a golden cross, and it became the most sacred relic of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, with none of the controversy that had followed their discovery of the Holy Lance in Antioch. It was housed in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre under the protection of the Latin Patriarch, who marched with it ahead of the army before every battle.
  After King Baldwin I of Jerusalem presented King Sigurd I of Norway with a splinter of the True Cross following the Norwegian Crusade in 1110, the Cross was captured by Saladin during the Battle of Hattin in 1187, and while some Christian rulers, like Richard the Lionheart, Byzantine emperor Isaac II Angelos and Tamar, Queen of Georgia, sought to ransom it from Saladin, the cross was not returned.
  In 1219 the True Cross was offered to the Knights Templar by Al-Kamil in exchange for lifting the siege on Damietta. The cross was never delivered as Al-Kamil did not, in fact, have it. Subsequently the cross disappeared from historical records. The True Cross was last seen in the city of Damascus.
caption: Reliquary of the True Cross at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem
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