The Memorial of Saint Helena

On 18 August the Order celebrates one of its patrons, Saint Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine, to whom we owe the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity and the construction of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre.

Born into a family of modest means in Asia Minor around 248, Helena was working at an inn when a tribune from Illyria named Constantius, drawn by her character, married her. She accompanied her husband at every stage of his military career, to Germany and to Britain, and the young Constantine was born of their union.

In 293 Constantius became Caesar in Gaul, Britain and Spain, and was obliged by Roman law and custom to repudiate Helena and marry Princess Theodora. Constantine was raised by his mother at the court of Nicomedia, partly guest and partly hostage, and later joined his father in Britain. When his father died in 306 the troops brought him to power. In 312 his rival Maxentius was proclaimed emperor of Rome; Constantine marched on the eternal city and was victorious at the Milvian Bridge, attributing the victory to a vision of a cross in the sky with the words: By this sign you will conquer. The Edict of Milan put an end to the persecution of Christians.

In 317 Constantine named Helena Augusta, mother Empress, and she resolved to go on pilgrimage to the holy places. Arriving in Jerusalem she destroyed the Temple of Venus that Hadrian had built on Calvary. During the excavation many crosses were discovered, one of which was identified miraculously as the Cross of the Saviour. The Emperor’s mother laid the first stones of the basilicas wanted by Constantine: the Church of Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre, the Church of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives, and the Church of the Grotto of Bethlehem.

Helena died in Constantinople, next to her son, and her body was brought to Rome, where Constantine transformed her residence into the Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. Around 840 a monk named Theutgise brought part of the saint’s remains to the Benedictine Abbey of Hautvillers, and the Pope approved their transfer at the request of the Archbishop of Reims. On the anniversary of her death, 18 August, and on the feast of the Holy Cross, a solemn office of the saint is celebrated there, followed by a procession in which pilgrims implore her intercession.

During the French Revolution, Dom Jean-Baptiste Grossard saved the relics of Saint Helena, which in 1820 were placed in the church of Saint-Leu-Saint-Gilles in Paris, the Chapter Church of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre in France. They remain today an object of veneration for Catholic and Orthodox faithful who come on pilgrimage to invoke her who so loved the Holy Land.