The origin (of this feast) is traced back to the discovery of the True Cross in the fourth century, the result of the initiative of the Empress Helen, mother of Constantine the Great. The icon depicts for us the Bishop of Jerusalem standing in front of the Church of the Resurrection and presenting the Holy Cross for the veneration of the faithful. The Cross is raised upon "the place of the skull" Jn 19:17), or Golgotha, in which Tradition sees symbolized the center of the world and the burial place of Adam. The Cross is at once the instrument and the sign through which Christ, the New Adam, frees the cosmos from the darkness of death and grants its transfiguration.
Michel Quenot, The Icon, Window on the Kingdom. St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1991.