Saint Helena

Roman empress

  • Born: c. 248
  • Birthplace: Drepanum, Bithnyia, Asia Minor (now Helenopolis, Turkey)
  • Died: c. 328
  • Place of death: Nicomedia (now İzmit, Turkey)

Helena was the mother of Constantine the Great, the first Christian Roman emperor. Her elevation to sainthood was conferred because, according to tradition, she set out on a pilgrimage to Palestine to discover the cross of Christ’s Crucifixion and, on doing so, founded the Church of the Nativity and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Holy Land.

Early Life

Historical fact and historical fiction intertwine in the writings regarding the life and times of Helena (HEHL-uh-nuh). The more authentic versions are believed to be those that are oldest, those being from Eusebius of Caesarea, Saint Ambrose, and Cassiodorus. Eusebius, Helena’s contemporary, was bishop of Caesarea in Palestine and author of the four-book “eulogy” Vita Constantini (339 c.e.; Life of Constantine, 1845). Eusebius dedicated paragraphs 42-47 of Book 3 of Vita Constantini to the eastern provinces of the Empire and Helena’s stay in Palestine.

Although little is known of her early life, the most common belief is that Helena was born of the humblest of origins and possibly started her life as a stable girl or servant at an inn. While a few accounts claim that she married Constantius Chlorus, more often the interpretation has been that she was his concubine. In the Roman Empire of that time, concubinage was an accepted form of cohabitation. The relationship, however legal it may have been, began around 270; Helena gave birth to Constantine sometime near the period between 273 and 275.

Constantius was an officer in the Roman army when Helena met him. He rose to the position of caesar, or deputy emperor, in 293 and to the rank of augustus from 305 until his death in 306—but not before deserting Helena. He became caesar under Maximian in the west of the Roman Empire. Constantine’s mother was cast off in order that Maximian could marry his stepdaughter Theodora to Constantius in 289. Constantius’s marriage with Theodora was a prerequisite for a successful political career in Diocletian’s newly introduced tetrarchy. Helena and her son were separated, and not until 306, when Constantine was named successor of his father, did she reappear in the historical accounts in her new role as the empress-mother at Constantine’s court.

A definitive interpretation of historical writings on the era is not possible, but tradition says that during his rule, Constantine was struck with incurable leprosy. Pagan priests advised him to bathe in the warm blood of three thousand boys. When the children were gathered, Constantine responded to the anguished pleas from their mothers and freed them. For this act, he was visited by two emissaries from Jesus Christ. Constantine was baptized, catechized, and cured. This story was later popularized by the famous Italian painter Raphael (1483-1520), whose interpretation of the event is captured in the painting The Donation of Constantine.

Helena, as the legend continues, challenged her son’s conversion from pagan idolatry to Christianity, and a theological debate was established to resolve the dispute. Saint Silvester entertained the arguments of eleven leading Jewish scholars who protested the Christian faith. Silvester ultimately won when he brought back to life, in the name of Jesus Christ, a bull that the Jew Zambri had caused to drop dead. As the legend recounts, Helena, the Jews, and the judges all then converted. Another popular legend regarding Constantine’s conversion to Christianity holds that the Christian Saint Silvester pardoned Constantine for the murder of his son and wife and won the leader to Christianity for doing so.

Constantine gave the first impetus to the Christianization of the Roman Empire and the eventual Christianization of Europe. He became sole ruler of the Roman Empire in 324, proclaimed Helena as augusta soon after and summoned the Council of Nicaea in 325. A prominent participant in this religious council, Constantine pushed for the dogmatic unity of the Christian religion. The bishops agreed on a common dogma expressed in the Nicene Creed. Constantine’s focus on Christianization led to the building of many churches, including those over Christ’s purported tomb and over the cave where Christ was said to have been born in Bethlehem. Both structures were credited to Helena’s pilgrimage to those places.

During Constantine’s reunification efforts following his victory in 324, he equated the harmonious unity of his family with the unity of the Empire. This position was lethal to his political leadership when, in 326, he executed his wife, Fausta, and his eldest son, Crispus, the young man who had been born to his concubine, Minervina. The most plausible justification was that a sexual relationship had developed between Fausta and Crispus, but the truth is obscure. Various accounts relate the pain experienced by Helena at the news of her favorite grandson’s murder; her pilgrimage may have been in some part a response to the sin her son had committed in ordering the murder.

The scandal in the Constantinian family and the turmoil caused by Constantine’s insistence on Christianity created unrest in the eastern parts of the Roman Empire. To appease the people of the eastern provinces, Helen set off to meet them. Her travels were marked by her piety and gracious giving to all whom she encountered. An old Anglo-Saxon poem by Cynewulf (c. eighth century) tells the legend of Saint Helena’s journey to Jerusalem to search for the Cross.

Life’s Work

Tradition says Helena discovered the True Cross. She discovered three crosses, and Pontius’s inscription marked the True Cross, according to one tradition. In a more symbolic interpretation, historians have written that on finding three crosses, Helena turned to Marcarius, bishop of Jerusalem, for mediation. A mortally sick woman (in some tellings, one who had just died) was brought to the crosses. When she was touched by the first two, nothing happened; on the touch of the third cross, she was immediately healed. Thus, the holy wood of the True Cross was identified. More important, the healing symbolized the salvation of Christianity for those who believed in Christ.

Because of Helena’s visit to the Holy Land, churches were erected at the cave where the nativity occurred in Bethlehem (the Church of the Nativity) and on the Mount of Olives, from which Christ is said to have ascended into heaven (the Church of the Assumption). The attachment of holiness (or unholiness) to something tangible was not inherent in Christianity, for nothing earthly was considered holy. The concept of churches as holy places was established by Constantine and Helena as part of the establishment of Christianity. The churches were thus structured to represent the places where earth and heaven met.

The bodies of the Three Magi, now shown at Cologne, Germany, are said to have been brought by Helena from the East and given to the Church of Milan. She is also said to have given the Holy Coat, the seamless robe of Christ, to the cathedral of Trier in Germany. In some accounts, she is also credited with finding the nails that fastened Christ’s body to the Cross.

Legend reports she established Stavrovouni Monastery in Cyprus, where she stayed during her return journey from Jerusalem. She is said to have presented a piece of the True Cross in establishing the monastery. The monastery occupies the easternmost summit of the Troodos range of mountains, at a height of 2,260 feet (689 meters). Tradition describes the monastery as a fortress impregnable against pagan attacks.

To the southeast of Rome, a territory called fundus Laurentus was an estate belonging to Helena (acquired sometime after 312). The site was one of the first areas in Rome where the new Christian convictions of the members of the Imperial house were manifested.

Another historical legend, with some archaeological support, tells that Helena gave her Imperial palace in Trier to Agricius, at the time priest to Antioch, for use as Trier’s cathedral. Legend also has it that she was involved in the foundation of the abbey of Saint Maximin at Trier.

Significance

The sarcophagus of Saint Helena is in the Vatican Museum. Originally intended for Constantine, the sarcophagus is covered with reliefs celebrating military triumphs. More than one hundred churches have been dedicated to Saint Helena in England. By the end of the Middle Ages, her feast was kept in many churches on February 8. Throughout the world, her feast day is celebrated: by the Roman Catholic Church on August 18, by the Greeks on May 21, by the Ethiopians on September 15, and by the Copts on March 24 and May 4. She is the patroness of dyers, needlers, and nailsmiths.

Jan Willem Drijvers reported in his definitive book Helena Augusta: The Mother of Constantine the Great and the Legend of Her Finding of the True Cross (1992) that there may be two cameos depicting Helena: the so-called Ada cameo, preserved in the Stadtbibliothek in Trier, and a cameo in the Koninklijk Penningkabinet in Leiden, Netherlands. It is difficult to identify statues of Helena with any certainty. Because Helena’s coiffure was well attested, it is typically the test for images. On the coin portraits that have been identified as depicting Helena, her hair is sleekly combed and worn in a knot over the middle of her head. Although her image is sometimes difficult to distinguish, her impact is not. For many empresses and queens who came to the throne after her, Helena Augusta became the perfect Christian empress whose humble piety was a model for all.

Bibliography

Bietenhoiz, Peter G. Historia and Fabula: Myths and Legends in Historical Thought from Antiquity to the Modern Age. New York: E. J. Brill, 1994. Establishes a perspective from which to approach the “historical” study of Saint Helena as that concerned both with things that actually happened (historia) and things that are merely supposed to have happened (fabula). Explores myths, legends, and historical thought surrounding Constantine the Great and his mother.

Burckhardt, Jacob. The Age of Constantine the Great. Translated by Moses Hadas. 1949. Reprint. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. Cited as the most meaningful history for the nonprofessional reader, Burckhardt’s essay of nearly four hundred pages is a humanist reaction against the microscopic but less imaginative writings of scientific historians. Topical page headings and an extensive index make the book reader-friendly.

Drijvers, Jan Willem. Helena Augusta: The Mother of Constantine the Great and the Legend of Her Finding of the True Cross. New York: E. J. Brill, 1992. This book focuses on the task of distinguishing the history of Helena from the legend. Includes identification of coins and statues of Helena and an extensive bibliography.

Firth, John B. Constantine the Great: The Reorganization of the Empire and the Triumph of the Church. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1971. The twenty-seven illustrations in this book include several depictions of Helena and others related to her. Includes a comprehensive index.

Grant, Michael. Constantine the Great: The Man and His Times. New York: Scribner’s, 1994. A chronological table, maps, and illustrations enhance this telling of the impact of Constantine and Helena on Christianity.

Waugh, Evelyn. “Saint Helena Empress.” In Saints for Now, edited by Clare Boothe Luce. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1952. Brief but highly readable and literary interpretation of Helena’s life.