additional images of Saint Helena
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Also known as Helen; Flavia Julia Helena Augusta Memorial 18 August Profile: Converted to Christianity late in life. Married Constantius Chlorus, co-regent of the western Roman empire. Mother of Constantine the Great. Her husband put her aside for a 2nd marriage with better political connections. On his death, her son ascended to thte throne, brought her home, and treated her as royalty. Used her high position and wealth in the service of her religious enthusiasm. Helped build churches throughout the empire. At the age of 80 she led a group to the Holy Land to search for the True Cross. She and her group unearthed three crosses. They took them to a woman afflicated with an incurable disease, and had her touch each one. One of them immediately cured her, and it was pronounced the True Cross. She built a church on the spot where the cross was found, and sent pieces to Rome and Constantinople. Thus in art, she is usually depicted holding a wooden cross. Born 250 Died 330 Name Meaning light, torch Patronage: converts, difficult marriages, divorced people, empresses Representation : cross; woman, usually wearing a crown or otherwise vested as royalty, holding a cross The Story of the Discovery of the Cross The "holy cross [was] found by St. Helen in the 326, about 180 years after it had been buried by the heathens. For out of an aversion to Christianity, they had done all in their power to conceal the place where it lay, and where our Savior was buried. They had therefore heaped upon his sepulcher a great quantity of stones and rubbish, besides building a temple to Venus; that those who came thither to adore him. might seem to pay their worship to a marble idol resenting this false deity. They had, more over, erected a statue to Jupiter in the place where our Savior rose from the dead, as we are informed by St. Jerome; which figure continued there from the emperor Adrian's time to Constantine's reign. The precautions of the persecutors evidently show the veneration which Christians must have paid from the beginning to the Instruments of our redemption. Helena, Constantine's mother, being inspired with a great desire to find the identical cross on which Christ had suffered for our sins, came to Jerusalem, and consulted all those whom she thought likely to assist her in compassing [accomplishing] her pious design. She was by them credibly informed, that if she could find out the sepulcher, she would likewise find out the instruments of the punishment; it being always a custom among the Jews to make a great hole near the place where the body of the criminal was buried, and to throw into it whatever belonged to his execution; looking upon all these things as detestable objects, and which for that reason ought to be removed out of sight. The pious empress, therefore, ordered the profane building to be pulled down, the statues to be broken in pieces, and the rubbish to he removed; and upon digging to a great depth, they discovered the holy sepulcher, and near it three crosses; also the nails which had pierced our Saviour's body, and the title which had been affixed to his cross. By this discovery they understood that one of the three crosses was that which they were in quest of, and that the other two belonged to the two malefactors between whom our Savior had been crucified. But as the title was found separate from the cross, a difficulty remained to distinguish which of the three was that cross on which our divine redeemer had consummated his sacrifice for the salvation of the world. In this perplexity the holy bishop Macarius, knowing that one of the principal ladies of the city lay extremely ill, suggested to the empress to cause the three crosses to be carried to the sick person, not doubting but God would discover which was the cross they sought for. This being done, St. Macarius prayed that God would have regard to their faith, and after his prayer, applied the crosses singly to the patient, who was immediately and perfectly recovered by the touch of one of the crosses, the other two having been tried without effect. St. Helen, full of joy for having found the treasure which she had so earnestly sought, and so highly esteemed, built a church on the spot, and lodged it there with great veneration, having provided an extraordinary rich case for it. She afterward carried part of it to the emperor Constantine, then at Constantinople, who received it with great veneration: another part she sent, or rather carried to Rome to be placed in the church which she built there, under the name of The Holy Cross of Jerusalem, where it remains to this day. The title was sent by St. Helen to the same church in Rome, and deposited on the top of an arch, where it was found in a case of lead in 1492, and may be read at length in Bozius. The inscription in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, is in red letters, and the wood was whitened. Thus it was in 1492 but these colors have since faded. Also the words Jesus and Judaeorum are eaten away. The board is nine, but must have been originally twelve inches long. The main part of the cross St. Helen enclosed in a silver shrine, and committed to the care of St. Macarius, that it might be delivered down to posterity as an object of veneration. It was accordingly kept with singular respect in the magnificent church which she and her son built at Jerusalem, and was shown publicly to the people at Easter. This stately church was hence called the Basilic of the Holy Cross; it was also called the church of the Sepulchre or of the Resurrection, thought this was properly the title only of the holy chapel which stood over the sepulcher or cavern in which our Savior was buried, which was in the garden adjoining to Mount Calvary; so that this great church covered the sepulcher, and was extended so far on Mount Calvary as also to included the rock Golgotha, and the very place where the cross of Christ stood at his crucifixion. This extensive building was enclosed within the walls of Jerusalem when that city was rebuilt. The find of the cross by St. Helen happened in the year of our Lord 326, in the thirteenth of the pontificate of Sylvester, and the first after the council of Nice."
Wife of Constantius I and mother of Constantine
The story of Saint Helena is one of the most famous classic Cinderella tales of all time in many countries and cultures. She is one of the most honored of the saints in the Eastern or Greek Orthodox Church. Strangely, her story is not a very well known one outside the Orthodox Church in the United States, even amongst the Roman Catholic community to which she is also a symbol of goodness and piety. It is one of those strange paradoxes of literature that the fairy tale is passed along by parents to their children from generation to generation while some of the stories of real people are all but forgotten. Helena was born and grew up in the Roman province of Illyricum (modern Bosnia, Serbia, and Herzegovina) in the mid Third Century. Not much is known about her family, but they were probably quite poor because she found it necessary to work in a tavern as a servant girl, an occupation no daughter of a wealthy man would choose. In fact the status of STABVLARIA, or tavern girls were little better than prostitutes in the Roman world. In her line of work, Helena was bound to gain the attention of men. These were often soldiers in the Roman army serving on the frontiers far from their homes. These soldiers who spent their lives guarding Rome's frontiers often took a local wife or mistress to ease the loneliness and discomfort of an army camp far from the civilized world they knew. Such was the case with Helena. A handsome but pale skinned Roman general had soon fallen deeply in love with the young Helena and took her as his mistress. This was Constantius Chlorus. who was later to become the emperor Constantius I. Our pale soldier might have married his local girl, but there was always the chance that he might be stationed back in the civilized world someday and be married into a family with influence and power. During ancient times, love was not considered an important reason to marry. Allying oneself with the proper family and making the right political connections were much more important reasons. Like many frontier army families had done in the past, Constantius and Helena settled down to a life together on the edge of the empire. Before too long, their union produced a son, who was named Constantine. We might never have heard of this little family except for an event which now came to pass that brought sadness into the couple's life but ensured a prominent place in the history books for all three members. The Roman emperor at that time was Diocletian, who had come to the throne in A. D. 284 after a fifty year period during which the man who was emperor seemed to receive the kiss of death as soon as he ascended the throne. Wars against external enemies, rebels at home, and the disconcerting tendency for the Praetorian Guard to choose a favorite, put him on the throne, and then murder him after a short reign had made it clear that some changes were needed in the government. Diocletian came up with an idea that made the job of emperor a much safer one and greatly strengthened the Roman Empire during this period of crisis. He would share the government of the Roman Empire with another man, an imperial colleague. The colleague would set up his court in a distant city, which made it hard to murder both emperors at the same time. Furthermore, the colleague would be bound to the senior augustus by family, friendship, and political ties that would hopefully ensure that he would not turn and become a rebel. For the post of imperial colleague in the West, Diocletian now chose Maximianus, who became the Roman emperor in the West in April, A. D. 286. Diocletian would continue to rule in the East. In 293, Diocletian chose a caesar who would succeed him on the throne. Maximianus was told to do the same and chose the successful and loyal general Constantius Chlorus to be his caesar. As part of the process of building an unbreakable bond between the two augusti, and their two caesars, Maximian ordered Constantius to forsake Helena and take his own step - daughter Theodora as his wife. The boy Constantine was sent away to be raised in the household of Galerius, who was Diocletian's caesar. Diocletian's plan was for the two augusti to rule for twenty years and then abdicate. The two caesars would then be promoted to augusti and would presumably have the experience to govern well. In this way the succession was not left up to chance and the new emperors would be prepared to rule. In A. D. 305, Diocletian willingly and Maximianus reluctantly gave up their thrones and passed along the leadership of empire in front of their troops. Meanwhile, the seeds of jealousy which would tear this very sensible system apart had been sown. Constantine had become a popular general in his own right and Constantius immediately invited his son to join him in Britain. Galerius really did not want the young man to leave, considering hi almost a hostage to ensure that his father did not make any moves against Galerius. He grudgingly gave permission for Constantine to leave. Constantine left in the middle of the night before he was expected to and made a wild ride towards the coast of Gaul where his father was about to set sail for Britain. Constantine arrived just in time to catch the fleet before it left. Father and son were now joyously reunited after thirteen years. It appears that no one remembered the woman, Constantine's mother, that Constantius had loved so deeply twenty years ago. The happy reunion of father and son was to be a very brief one. In 306, Constantius became sick and died at York, probably within shouting distance of the place where another emperor, Septimius Severus, had died almost two hundred years before. By one of those amazing coincidences of history, both emperors had died after having returned from a military campaign against the Picts in the north of Britain, a land that would later be called Scotland. It was now after all these years that her son could now elevate Helena to the position of respect and honor that her husband was unable or unwilling to do. In an age when royal titles were multiplying and becoming ever more grandiose sounding, Constantine reverently bestowed upon his mother the title of NOBILISSIMA FEMINA, meaning "Most Honored and Noble Lady." Evidence of being accorded this title is symbolized on coins of the period by the adding of the letters NF in the obverse legend after the noblewoman's name. This title is also the one chosen for the introduction to the section on Roman women in this author's present work. As time went on, the Role of Helena grew to where she held a position of power and influence in Constantine's government. By providing her son with wise counsel, she became as much the powerful woman behind the throne that Livia, Julia Domna, and Julia Maesa had been in previous ages. The events of Helena's later life contain the elements of legend which have given her such a prominent place in Roman Catholic Church tradition. In A. D. 326, work was officially begun on the transformation of the small and ancient Greek town of Byzantium into the New Rome of Constantine's ambitious dreams. This city was to be named Constantinople and was a capital of Christianity and the Roman East until A. D. 1453. Helena was by now an old woman of eighty but she found the energy to embark on a lengthy pilgrimage to the holy places of Christianity. All along the path of her journey, the people venerated and expressed their love for their empress. Helena performed acts of charity, endowed churches, and collected holy relics in her travels. When she passed through a place, prisoners were granted a pardon. The climax of Helena's storybook life was her discovery of the True Cross, which she duly brought back to be given a place of reverence in Constantine's new city. With a true flair for the dramatic, the bishop at Jerusalem unearthed a three - hundred year old cross from the earth of Calvary that had mysteriously never seen the ravages of time, soil, and wood - boring insects. While this relic may have been planted in an ingenious plot by the bishop to create an ancient artifact, a holy relic, and a miracle before the eyes of the eighty - year old empress, let us not allow the intrusion of archaeological facts ruin the impact of a good story. Regardless of the genuineness of the cross that had been discovered, these events helped to create a popular Church legend and secure a permanent place in history for this remarkable woman.
The mother of Constantine the Great, born about the middle of the third century, possibly in Drepanum (later known as Helenopolis) on the Nicomedian Gulf; died about 330. She was of humble parentage; St. Ambrose, in his "Oratio de obitu Theodosii", referred to her as a stabularia, or inn-keeper. Nevertheless, she became the lawful wife of Constantius Chlorus. Her first and only son, Constantine, was born in Naissus in Upper Moesia, in the year 274. The statement made by English chroniclers of the Middle Ages, according to which Helena was supposed to have been the daughter of a British prince, is entirely without historical foundation. It may arise from the misinterpretation of a term used in the fourth chapter of the panegyric on Constantine's marriage with Fausta, that Constantine, oriendo (i. e., "by his beginnings," "from the outset") had honoured Britain, which was taken as an allusion to his birth, whereas the reference was really to the beginning of his reign. In the year 292 Constantius, having become co-Regent of the West, gave himself up to considerations of a political nature and forsook Helena in order to marry Theodora, the step-daughter of Emperor Maximianus Herculius, his patron, and well-wisher. But her son remained faithful and loyal to her. On the death of Constantius Chlorus, in 308, Constantine, who succeeded him, summoned his mother to the imperial court, conferred on her the title of Augusta, ordered that all honour should be paid her as the mother of the sovereign, and had coins struck bearing her effigy. Her son's influence caused her to embrace Christianity after his victory over Maxentius. This is directly attested by Eusebius (Vita Constantini, III, xlvii): "She (his mother) became under his (Constantine's) influence such a devout servant of God, that one might believe her to have been from her very childhood a disciple of the Redeemer of mankind". It is also clear from the declaration of the contemporary historian of the Church that Helena, from the time of her conversion had an earnestly Christian life and by her influence and liberality favoured the wider spread of Christianity. Tradition links her name with the building of Christian churches in the cities of the West, where the imperial court resided, notably at Rome and Trier, and there is no reason for rejecting this tradition, for we know positively through Eusebius that Helena erected churches on the hallowed spots of Palestine. Despite her advanced age she undertook a journey to Palestine when Constantine, through his victory over Licinius, had become sole master of the Roman Empire, subsequently, therefore, to the year 324. It was in Palestine, as we learn from Eusebius (loc. cit., xlii), that she had resolved to bring to God, the King of kings, the homage and tribute of her devotion. She lavished on that land her bounties and good deeds, she "explored it with remarkable discernment", and "visited it with the care and solicitude of the emperor himself". Then, when she "had shown due veneration to the footsteps of the Saviour", she had two churches erected for the worship of God: one was raised in Bethlehem near the Grotto of the Nativity, the other on the Mount of the Ascension, near Jerusalem. She also embellished the sacred grotto with rich ornaments. This sojourn in Jerusalem proved the starting-point of the legend first recorded by Rufinus as to the discovery of the Cross of Christ. Her princely munificence was such that, according to Eusebius, she assisted not only individuals but entire communities. The poor and destitute were the special objects of her charity. She visited the churches everywhere with pious zeal and made them rich donations. It was thus that, in fulfilment of the Saviour's precept, she brought forth abundant fruit in word and deed. If Helena conducted herself in this manner while in the Holy Land, which is indeed testified to by Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, we should not doubt that she manifested the same piety and benevolence in those other cities of the empire in which she resided after her conversion. Her memory in Rome is chiefly identified with the church of S. Croce in Gerusalemme. On the present location of this church formerly stood the Palatium Sessorianum, and near by were the Thermae Helenianae, which baths derived their name from the empress. Here two inscriptions were found composed in honour of Helena. The Sessorium, which was near the site of the Lateran, probably served as Helena's residence when she stayed in Rome; so that it is quite possible for a Christian basilica to have been erected on this spot by Constantine, at her suggestion and in honour of the true Cross. Helena was still living in the year 326, when Constantine ordered the execution of his son Crispus. When, according to Socrates account (Hist. eccl., I, xvii), the emperor in 327 improved Drepanum, his mother's native town, and decreed that it should be called Helenopolis, it is probable that the latter returned from Palestine to her son who was then residing in the Orient. Constantine was with her when she died, at the advanced age of eighty years or thereabouts (Eusebius, "Vita Const.", III, xlvi). This must have been about the year 330, for the last coins which are known to have been stamped with her name bore this date. Her body was brought to Constantinople and laid to rest in the imperial vault of the church of the Apostles. It is presumed that her remains were transferred in 849 to the Abbey of Hautvillers, in the French Archdiocese of Reims, as recorded by the monk Altmann in his "Translatio". She was revered as a saint, and the veneration spread, early in the ninth century, even to Western countries. Her feast falls on 18 August. Regarding the finding of the Holy Cross by St. Helena, see CROSS AND CRUCIFIX. J.P. KIRSCH Transcribed by Michael C. Tinkler The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VII Copyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton Company Online Edition Copyright © 1999 by Kevin Knight Nihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Saint Helena Parish School
Msgr. Joseph Trinh, pastor
Sister Marie Albert, SSJ, principal
Ms. Carol Volpe, vice-principal
5th and Godfrey Avenues
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
updated: 13 April 2005
www.sainthelenaparish.org
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