Helena – Protector of the Holy Places:
The Empress Helena only achieved power in the Roman Empire when her son Constantine became emperor in the year 306. Although she had previously been abandoned by her husband, her son raised her to a position of great honour. As Helena was a Christian she gave her support to their cause, and in 326 she made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. There she provided the wherewithal to found the building of a basilica on the Mount of Olives and another at Bethlehem. According to a much later tradition, she discovered the cross on which Christ was crucified. In the Eastern Church, she is commemorated on 21 May together with her son Constantine.
A passage from the ‘Ecclesiastical History’ of Socrates:
“Helena, the mother of the emperor Constantine, being divinely directed by dreams, went to Jerusalem. She sought carefully the sepulchre of Christ, from which he arose after his burial; and after much difficulty, by God’s help she discovered it. What the cause of the difficulty was I will explain in a few words.
“Those who embraced the Christian faith, after the period of his passion, greatly venerated this tomb; but those who hated Christianity, having covered the spot with a mound of earth, erected on it a temple to Venus, and set up her image there, not caring for the memory of the place. This succeeded for a long time; and it became known to the emperor’s mother. Accordingly having caused the statue to be thrown down, the earth to be removed, and the ground entirely cleared, she found three crosses in the sepulchre: one of these was that blessed cross on which Christ had hung, the other two were those on which the two thieves that were crucified with him had died. With these was also found the tablet of Pilate, on which he had inscribed in various characters, that the Christ who was crucified was King of the Jews.
“Since, however, it was doubtful which cross they were in search of, the emperor’s mother was not a little distressed; but from this trouble the bishop of Jerusalem, Macarius, shortly relieved her. And he solved the doubt of faith, for he sought a sign from God and obtained it. The sign was this: certain women of the neighbourhood, who had been long afflicted with disease, were now just at the point of death; the bishop therefore arranged it so that each of the crosses should be brought to the dying women, believing that she would be healed on touching the precious cross. Nor was he disappointed in his expectation: for the two crosses having been applied which were not the Lord’s, the women still continued in a dying state; but when the third, which was the true cross, touched her, she was immediately healed, and recovered her former strength. In this manner then was the genuine cross discovered.”
Extract taken with permission from “Celebrating the Saints” By Robert Atwell, published by Canterbury Press.
