You are currently viewing Saint Helena. Who is Helena of Constantinople?

Saint Helena. Who is Helena of Constantinople?

The Church has consistently recognized the benefits that came to Christianity during the reign of Constantine the Great and has established a particular cult to honor him with the one who guided him and was always close to him, Saint Empress Helena, his mother.

Flavia Iulia Helena, known as Helena Augusta or Saint Helena (ca. 248 – ca. 329), was born, according to the data provided by Procopius, in the town of Drepanon (today Karamiirsel) in Bythinia (in north-west Asia Minor), which Constantine later changed its name to Helenopolis, in honor of his mother.

For her qualities, when she was about 20 years old, she was taken into marriage by the tribune Constantin Choir, going beyond the custom of taking a wife among poor girls. A year after the wedding, in 272, Constantine, the future emperor, was born.

Read also: Saint Elizabeth of Hungary. What do we learn from Elizabeth in the Bible?

What is Saint Helena known for?

Notwithstanding her experience, Helena wedded Constantius Chlorus. With him, she birthed her primary child, Constantine. Around the year 274. Almost twenty years after the fact, in 292, Constantius, presently co-Regent of the West, got cleared up in his rising height and separated from Helena for Theodora, the progression girl of Emperor Maximinianus Herculius. It is accepted he did this to propel his standing and advance his remaining in the Roman culture.

St. Helena was known for being the mother of Emperor Constantine the Great and an Empress of the Roman Empire. In Asia Minor, she was naturally introduced to an unfortunate family and lower class in the Roman culture of the day. St. Ambrose depicted Helena as a “great stable-house cleaner.”

Constantine was perpetually faithful to his dear mother, whom he cherished without a doubt. As he developed and turned into an individual from the inward circle, he never walked out on Helena. Following the demise of Constantius in 308, Constantine became Emperor and called his mom back into the inward process and the supreme court. Helena got the title of Augusta.

Read also: Saint Maximus the Confessor. The Venerable Saint Maximus

Biography of Saint Flavia Iulia Helena Augusta

[table id=176 /]

Biblical places from the times of Saint Helena

  1. Byzantium
  2. Byzantine Empire
  3. Constantinople

When did Saint Helena convert to Christianity?

Many know St. Helena as the profoundly influential mother of Emperor Constantine. She left a mark on the world by loosening up the standards against Christianity and preparing for the ascent of the Roman Catholic Church. What’s intriguing to note is that she didn’t change to Christianity until some other time throughout everyday life.

Records show that Saint Helena converted to Christianity in 0312 AD because she didn’t embrace the Christian religion until after her child was triumphant over Emperor Maxentius, which happened in 312. Considering this, Helena was anything but a Christian until she was approximately 65 years of age.

It may be an astounding truth, as St. Helena passed on around 15 years after the fact, but she is credited with the structure of various chapels and the disclosure of numerous relics, like the true cross of Jesus Christ. St. Helena was a lady who put her whole self into something; when she turned into a Christian, she was a Christian without limit. She compensated for some recent setbacks by involving her power as the mother of the Roman sovereign to accomplish something beneficial on the planet and advance Christianity throughout the Empire.

Read also: Saint Peter. How did Peter die?

What influence did St Helena have on Constantine?

Helena met a blue-blood, Constantius Chlorus, maybe while he was among those battling Zenobia. A few later sources claim they met in Britain. Regardless of whether they wedded lawfully involves questions among antiquarians.

According to historical accounts, Helene had a significant impact on Constantine to change over to a Christian and stop the abuses that were going on in Rome at that time. Constantius accomplished an increasingly high position first under Diocletian and afterward under his co-sovereign Maximian. From 293 to 305, Constantius filled in as Caesar with Maximian as Augustus in the Tetrarchy. 

In 305, Maximian passed the title of Augustus to Constantius. As Constantius was biting the dust in 306, he broadcasted his child by Helena, Constantine, as his replacement. However, that circumvents the more youthful children of Constantius by Theodora, which would later justify dispute about the majestic progression.

Key Verse related to Helena The Saint

“He delighted in writing, in the joinery and embellishment of his sentences, in the consciousness of rare high virtue.”
― Evelyn Waugh, Helena

Saint Helena

What happened to the cross Jesus was crucified on?

The night Jesus was deceived shut a long day after His last Passover feast with His supporters. In the Garden of Gethsemane that evening, Jesus persevered through a horrendous enthusiastic, profound trial in the petition before His Father. Even though He was a Son, He learned compliance through what He suffered….” (Hebrews 5:7,8)

According to biblical and historical accounts, Saint Helene found the cross of Jesus, where He was crucified. When He passed on for us on the cross, Jesus ultimately met the invasion of devils, fallen holy messengers, and all the force of abhorrent powers in the sky, incapacitating every one of them totally – because “in Christ God was accommodating everything to Himself.”

After the request in the Garden, Jesus was up the remainder of that evening without rest, persevering through questioning, scourging, beating, awful joke, and unspeakable brutality. He was at that point significantly debilitated when He conveyed His cross, staggering, promptly the following morning to the spot of brutal killing close by the open expressway – most likely suitable external the Damascus Gate.

Read also: Saint Francis. Francis of Assisi

Where Is the True Cross?

The True Cross is supposed to be the cross after Jesus was killed. As indicated by post-Nicene history specialists, for example, Socrates of Constantinople and Empress Helena ventured out to the Holy Land in 326-328, establishing houses of worship and laying out alleviation organizations for poor people.

The True Cross of which Jesus Christ is written INRI can be found in Algeria. An engraving of 359, located at Trixter, in the neighborhood of Sétif in Mauretania (in today Algeria), was said to specify, in a count of relics, a piece of the True Cross, as indicated by a section in Roman Miscellanies, X, 441.

Sections of the Cross were separated, and the pieces were broadly dispersed; in 348, in one of his Catecheses, Cyril of Jerusalem commented that the “entire earth is brimming with the relics of the Cross of Christ.” In another, “The sacred wood of the Cross gives testimony, among us right up ’til the present time, and from this spot currently nearly filling the entire world, through the people who in confidence take segments from it.”

Read also: Saint Bartholomew. How did Bartholomew die?

Prayer to Saint Helena

Holy Emperors Constantine and Helen, indeed after God and the Mother of God.

You are also our hope and helpers, For you are certainly our joy in the time of trouble,

so you protect us in our need and help us. Also, you are the guardians

of the holy monasteries and also churches; for this, we fall 

before you with tears, praying that you will also not cease to help us.

The helpless, but intercede with God, His Most Holy Mother, 

and the Blessed Virgin Mary that He may also keep us without

fear and strengthen us all. In the faith to the

end of our lives for the salvation of our souls.

Amen!

Primary Takeaways

  • Around 455, the Juvenal Patriarch of Jerusalem shipped off Pope Leo I a section of the “valuable wood,” as per the Letters of Pope Leo. “In the little part is a force of the entire cross,” says an engraving in the Felix Basilica of Nola, worked by minister Paulinus toward the start of the fifth hundred years. 
  • The Old English sonnet Dream of the Rood specifies the finding of the cross and the start of the custom of worship of its relics. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle likewise discusses King Alfred is getting a part of the cross from Pope Marinus.
  • Shaftesbury convent was established by King Alfred, upheld with an enormous piece of state assets, and given to the charge of his little girl when he was alive – it is possible that assuming Alfred truly got this artifact, he might have given it to the consideration of the nuns at Shaftesbury.

Read also: Saint Joseph. Joseph, the Husband of Mary

Conclusion

History specialists Gelasius of Caesarea (passed on 395) and Rufinus (344/45-411) asserted that Helene found the concealing spot of three crosses that were accepted to have been utilized at the torturous killing of Jesus and the two criminals, St. Dismas and Gestas, executed with him. To one cross was fastened the titulus bearing Jesus’ name; however, as per Rufinus, Helena didn’t know until a wonder uncovered that this was the True Cross. 

Egeria’s record vouches for how profoundly these relics of the brutal killing were valued. Holy person John Chrysostom relates that pieces of the True Cross were kept in brilliant reliquaries, “what men respectfully wear upon their people.” Even two Latin engravings around 350 from present Algeria vouch for the keeping and esteem of little particles of the cross.

Thanks for joining us while we discussed Saint Helena. In the following line, you will find a nice Trivia about Helena, the Saint who found the cross of Jesus Christ. Have a good day!

Quizlet about Saint Helena

[ays_quiz id=”99″]

Read also: Saint Anthony. Anthony of Padua

Bibliography

  • Daly, R. A. (1927, March). The geology of Saint Helena Island. In Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Vol. 62, No. 2, pp. 31-92). American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
  • Larkin, S. G. (1995). Transitions in the medieval legends of Saint Helena (Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University).
  • Mother, S. C. S. (2017). (Saint) Helena of Soa: e Evolution of the Memory of. In The Reception of Byzantium in European Culture since 1500 (pp. 91-104). Routledge.
  • Vachkova, V. (2013). Why Constantine the Great Used To Say,“Serdica Is My Rome”?. Bulgarian Historical Review/Revue Bulgare d’Histoire, (1-2), 3-16.
  • Basky, E. Brother Kassianos of Pantokrator, Constantine and Helena.