death of Leni in the thick of reenactment season
2003.09.10 10:21
1934.09.4-10
Nazi Party Congress at Nuremberg, recorded under the direction of Leni Riefenstahl and results of which are entitled Triumph of The Will. September 4 -10 is right within the 'thick of reenactment season.'
1997.09.04
death of Aldo Rossi
1997.09.05
death of Mother Teresa of Calcutta
1997.09.06
funeral of Diana, the last great reenactment of the ancient Roman Triumphal Way in the 20th Century
2003.09.08
death of Leni Riefenstahl (coinciding with the Birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary)
2003.09.10
"rebuilding mnemonic meaning"
["Calendrical Coincidence" entitles the first chapter of EPICENTRAL.]
from Butler's Lives of the Saints:
14 September: The Exaltation of the Holy Cross, commonly called Holy Cross Day
On this day the Western church celebrates, as we learn from the Roman Martyrology and the lessons at Matins, the veneration of the great relics of Christ's cross at Jerusalem after the Emperor Heraclitus had recovered them from the hands of the Persians, who had carried them off in 614, fifteen years before. According to the story, the emperor determined to carry the precious burden upon his shoulders into the city, with the utmost pomp; but stopped suddenly at the entrance to the Holy Places and found he was not able to go forward. The patriarch Zachary, who walked by his side, suggested to him that his imperial splendour was hardly in agreement with the humble appearance of Christ when He bore His cross through the streets of that city. Thereupon the emperor laid aside his purple and his crown, put on simple clothes, went along barefoot with the procession, and devoutly replaced the cross where it was before. It was still in the silver case in which it had been carried away, and the patriarch and clergy, finding the seals whole, opened the case with the key and venerated its contents. The original writers always speak of this portion of the cross in the plural number, calling it the pieces of the wood of the true cross. This solemnity was carried out with the most devout thanksgiving, the relics were lifted up for the veneration of the people, and many sick were miraculously cured.
In the Eastern church the feast of the World-wide Exaltation of the Holy and Life-giving Cross is one of the greatest of the year, and principally commemorates the finding of the cross and (on the previous day) the dedication of Constantine's churches at the Holy Sepulcher and Calvary. The pilgrim Etheria in the fourth century tells us that these dedications were fixed for the same day as that on which the cross was found; and in early times in the East the feasts of the cross were connected more with the finding, the dedications, and a vision accorded to St. Cyril of Jerusalem in 351, rather than with the recovery by Heraclitus. It would appear certain the September 14 was the original date of the commemoration of the finding even at Rome, but that the Exaltation under Heraclitus took its place and the Finding was fixed for May 3 [coinciding with the birth of Aldo Rossi, 1931, and is a feast now removed since Pope John XXIII], according with Gallican usage. Mgr Duchesne states that this Holy Cross day in September was a festival of Palestinian origin, "on the anniversary of the dedication of the basilica erected by Constantine on the site of Calvary and the Holy Sepulcher," and he adds, "This dedication festival was celebrated in 335 by the bishops attending the Council of Tyre, who had pronounced Athanasius the sentence of deposition. There was associated with it also the commemoration of the discovery of the true cross," which was "exalted" before the assembled people.
If the True Cross was indeed discovered 14 September, it would have been 14 September 325, and if Helena Augusta was indeed present at the Finding, that means she had traveled from Nicomedia to Jerusalem in the time between 25 July (Constantine's 20th Jubilee celebrated at Nicomedia) and 14 September (almost seven weeks time). Given that Helena was now an official Empress and had access to the Imperial treasury equal to Constantine himself, she certainly had the means to travel with the utmost efficiency. The travel time would have to had been somewhat shorter, however, for a temple of Venus, erected at Calvary under Hadrian, was first needed to have been demolished in order for the Finding of the True Cross to have occurred during demolition/excavations in preparation of the forthcoming basilicas. The question is: could Helena have traveled from Nicomedia to Jerusalem in about a month, and then could significant demolition of a temple (under Imperial order) have been accomplished within three weeks?
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