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In the year 552, a ceremony was held to commemorate the first anniversary of the death of Martha, mother of St Simeon Stylites the Younger. The Vita of St Martha, written by an anonymous monk during the first half of the seventh century, records that the priest Antonio journeyed from Simeon's pillar at Mount Admirabilis, near Antioch, to Jerusalem to obtain a fragment of the cross. When Antonio returned to Mount Admirabilis, ‘a great crowd of men and women gathered in the grace of God, with candles and torches, to hold the service in her memory: and having kept a vigil all night, when in the early morning the living cross was displayed, all who were gathered worshipped, crying out with hymns: We adore your cross, Lord, and we glorify your holy resurrection.’ |
