Where do we usually get information about the lives of saints? Of course, from information sources of a church and theological nature. These can be Orthodox magazines, newspapers, books, specific websites and educational resources on the Internet, as well as Christian films and programs. However, if the ascetic was both a statesman and/or a commander who glorified the country, the main milestones of his earthly existence and personality characteristics are certainly contained in historical materials. This applies, for example, to Prince Vladimir, who baptized Rus', Princess Olga, and Prince Dimitri Donskoy. The host of saints also included the rulers of Rome: Tsar Constantine and his mother, Queen Helena. The day of remembrance of Equal-to-the-Apostles Constantine and Helena was established by the church on June 3.
Information about Konstantin
Saint Constantine was born in the 3rd century AD, more specifically in the year 274. The chosen one of God had a noble origin, since he was born into the family of Constantius Chlorus, co-ruler of the Roman Empire, and his wife, Queen Helena. The father of the future saint owned two regions of great power: Gaul and Britain. Officially, this family was considered pagan, but in fact, the only son of Caesar Constantius Chlorus and Helena grew up as a true Christian, raised by his parents in an atmosphere of kindness and love for God. Unlike the other co-rulers of the Roman Empire, Diocletian, Maximian Herculus and Maximian Galerius, the father of Saint Constantine did not persecute Christians in the fiefs entrusted to him.
The future ruler of Rome was distinguished by numerous virtues, among which his calm disposition and modesty stood out. Outwardly, Saint Constantine also endeared himself to those around him, since he was tall, physically developed, strong and handsome. This is evidenced by the description of the emperor’s appearance found in historical sources and compiled on the basis of archaeological data. The amazing combination of outstanding spiritual, personal and physical qualities of God's chosen one became during the reign of Saint Rome the subject of black envy and anger of the courtiers. For this reason, Caesar Galeria became Constantine’s sworn enemy.
The years of the saint's youth were not spent in his father's house. The youth was taken hostage and kept at the court of the tyrant Diocletian in Nicomedia. He was treated well, but was largely deprived of contact with the saint's family. Thus, the co-ruler Constantius Chlorus wanted to ensure the loyalty of Father Constantine.
Information about Elena
What is known about the personality of the ruler Helen? Enough to get a complete picture of this woman. Saint Helena did not belong to a noble family, like her husband: the chosen one of God was born into the family of an inn owner. The future queen got married contrary to the canons of that time, not by calculation or by conspiracy, but by mutual love. With her husband, Caesar Constantius Chlorus, Elena lived in a happy marriage for 18 years. And then the union collapsed overnight: the queen’s husband received an appointment from Emperor Diocletian to become the ruler of three regions at once: Gaul, Britain and Spain. At the same time, the tyrant put forward a demand to Constantius Chlorus for a divorce from Helen and for the co-ruler to marry his stepdaughter Theodora. Then Constantine, by the will of Emperor Diocletian, went to Nicomedia.
Queen Helena at that time was a little over forty years old. Finding herself in such a difficult situation, the still young woman focused all her love on her son - historians are sure that she never saw her husband again. Saint Helena found shelter not far from the area where Constantine was. There they were able to sometimes see each other and communicate. The queen became acquainted with Christianity in Drepanum, which was later renamed Helenopolis in honor of the mother of Constantine the Great (this is what the virtuous Roman ruler was later called). The woman was baptized in a local church. Over the next thirty years, Elena lived in constant prayer, cultivating virtues in herself, purifying her own soul from previous sins. The result of the work done was the acquisition of the saint by the honorary religious title “Equal to the Apostles.”
State activities of Constantine
In 306, Constantius Chlorus, father of Constantine the Great, died. Immediately after this mournful event, the army proclaimed the latter emperor of Gaul and Britain instead of the former ruler. The young man was 32 years old at that time - the prime of his youth. Constantine took the reins of government of these regions into his own hands and declared freedom of religion in the lands entrusted to him.
5 years later. In 311, the western part of the empire came under the control of Maxentius, who was distinguished by his cruelty and quickly became known as a tyrant because of this. The new emperor decided to eliminate Saint Constantine so as not to have a competitor. To this end, the son of Queen Helena decided to organize a military campaign, the goal of which he saw in ridding Rome of the misfortune in the person of the tyrant Maxentius. No sooner said than done. However, Constantine and his army had to face insurmountable difficulties: the enemy outnumbered them, and the cruel tyrant resorted to the help of black magic in order to defeat the defender of Christians at any cost. The son of Helen and Constantius Chlorus, despite his youth, was a very wise man. He quickly assessed the current situation and came to the conclusion that he could only wait for support from God. Constantine began to sincerely and fervently pray to the Creator for help. The Lord heard him and showed a miraculous sign in the form of a cross of light near the sun with the inscription “hereby conquer.” This happened before an important battle with the enemy; the emperor’s soldiers also witnessed the miracle. And at night the king saw Jesus himself with a banner on which the cross was again depicted. Christ explained to Constantine that only with the help of the cross could he defeat the tyrant Maxentius, and gave advice to acquire the same exact banner. Having obeyed God himself, Constantine defeated his enemy and took possession of half of the Roman Empire.
The great ruler of a great power did everything for the benefit of Christians. He accepted the latter under his special protection, although he never oppressed peoples professing other religions. The only people Constantine was intolerant of were pagans. The saint even had to enter into battle with the ruler of the eastern part of Rome, Licinius, who went to war against the son of Queen Helena. But everything ended well: with God’s help, Constantine the Great defeated the enemy army and became the sole emperor of the state. Of course, he immediately declared Christianity the main religion of the empire.
Saints Constantine and Helena did a lot to spread and strengthen Christianity. In particular, the queen found the Cross of Christ in Jerusalem, buried in the ground by opponents of the true faith in God. She brought part of the shrine to Rome to her son. Helen died in 327. Her relics are located in the Italian capital. Constantine died ten years later, leaving his three sons to reign in Rome.
1.
Saints Equal to the Apostles Constantine and Helen are not husband and wife, but son and mother.
2.
Saint Constantine was baptized at the very end of his life.
In the 4th century, there was a widespread custom of postponing the sacrament for an indefinite time, in the hope of receiving remission of all sins through baptism accepted at the end of life. Emperor Constantine, like many of his contemporaries, followed this custom.
At the beginning of 337, he went to Helenopolis to use the baths. But, feeling worse, he ordered himself to be transported to Nicomedia and in this city he was baptized on his deathbed. Before his death, having gathered the bishops, the emperor admitted that he dreamed of being baptized in the waters of the Jordan, but by the will of God he was accepting it here.
3. Empress Elena was of a simple family.
According to modern historians, Elena helped her father at the horse station, poured wine for travelers waiting for the horses to be re-harnessed and re-mounted, or simply worked as a servant in a tavern. There she apparently met Constantius Chlorus, under Maximian Herculius, who became Caesar of the West of the Roman Empire. In the early 270s she became his wife.
4. The Roman Catholic Church did not include the name of Emperor Constantine in the calendar, but Western bishops relied on his authority when trying to gain supreme power in the Church and in Europe in general.
The basis for such claims was the “Donation of Constantine” - a forged deed of gift from Constantine the Great to Pope Sylvester.
The “letter” states that Constantine the Great, upon his baptism by Pope Sylvester and upon his healing from leprosy, which he had previously been afflicted with, presented the pope with signs of imperial dignity, the Lateran palace, the city of Rome, Italy and all Western countries. He moved his residence to the eastern countries on the grounds that it is not appropriate for the head of an empire to live where the head of a religion resides; finally, the Pope was given supremacy over both the four sees - Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem and Constantinople - and over all the Christian churches throughout the universe.
The fact of forgery was proven by the Italian humanist Lorenzo della Valla in his essay “On the Gift of Constantine” (1440), published in 1517 by Ulrich von Hutten. Rome completely abandoned this document only in the 19th century.
5. Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity, but did not make it the state religion.
In 313, Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, proclaiming religious tolerance throughout the Roman Empire. The direct text of the edict has not reached us, but it is quoted by Lactantius in his work “On the Death of Persecutors.”
In accordance with this edict, all religions were equal in rights, thus, traditional Roman paganism lost its role as an official religion. The Edict particularly singles out Christians and provides for the return to Christians and Christian communities of all property that was taken from them during the persecution.
The Edict also provided for compensation from the treasury for those who came into possession of property previously owned by Christians and were forced to return this property to the former owners.
The opinion of a number of scientists that the Edict of Milan proclaimed Christianity as the only religion of the empire does not find, according to the point of view of other researchers, confirmation either in the text of the edict or in the circumstances of its composition.
6. The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross appeared in the church calendar thanks to the activities of Saints Constantine and Helen.
In 326, at the age of 80, Queen Helena went to the Holy Land with the goal of finding and visiting places consecrated by the most important events in the life of the Savior. She undertook excavations at Golgotha, where, having excavated the cave in which, according to legend, Jesus Christ was buried, she found the Life-Giving Cross.
The Exaltation is the only holiday that began simultaneously with the event itself to which it is dedicated. The First Exaltation was celebrated at the very discovery of the Cross in the Jerusalem Church, i.e. in the 4th century. And the fact that this holiday was soon combined (in 335) with the consecration of the magnificent Church of the Resurrection, built by Constantine the Great on the site of the discovery of the Cross, made this holiday one of the most solemn of the year.
7. Thanks to Empress Helena, a number of temples were built in the Holy Land.
The earliest historians (Socrates Scholasticus, Eusebius Pamphilus) report that during Helen’s stay in the Holy Land, three temples were founded at the sites of the Gospel events.
- on Golgotha - Church of the Holy Sepulchre;
- in Bethlehem - Basilica of the Nativity;
- on the Mount of Olives - the church above the site of the Ascension of Christ;
The Life of Saint Helena, written later, in the 7th century, contains a more extensive list of buildings, which, in addition to those already listed, includes:
- in Gethsemane - the Church of the Holy Family;
- in Bethany - the church over the tomb of Lazarus;
- in Hebron - the church at the Oak of Mamre, where God appeared to Abraham;
- near Lake Tiberias - the Temple of the Twelve Apostles;
- at the site of the ascension of Elijah - a temple in the name of this prophet;
- on Mount Tabor - a temple in the name of Jesus Christ and the apostles Peter, James and John;
- at the foot of Mount Sinai, near the Burning Bush, there is a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary and a tower for monks.
8. The city of Constantinople (now Istanbul) was named after Saint Constantine, who moved the capital of the Roman Empire there.
Having abandoned paganism, Constantine did not leave ancient Rome, which was the center of the pagan state, as the capital of the empire, but moved his capital to the east, to the city of Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople.
9. One of the oldest Bulgarian resorts on the Black Sea coast is named after Saints Constantine and Helena. It is located 6 kilometers northeast of the city of Varna.
In addition to the usual entertainment venues, hotels and sports facilities, the complex includes a chapel that was once part of a monastery built in honor of Emperor Constantine and his mother Empress Helena. Even before the Bulgarians, this coast was inhabited by the Greeks. The entire nearby area was a colony of the Byzantine Empire and was called Odessos.
10. The island of Saint Helena, to which Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled, is also named after the mother of Saint Constantine. It was discovered by the Portuguese navigator Joao da Nova while traveling home from India on May 21, 1502, the feast day of this saint.
The Portuguese found the island uninhabited; there was plenty of fresh water and wood on it. The sailors brought domestic animals (mostly goats), fruit trees, vegetables, built a church and a couple of houses, but they did not establish a permanent settlement. Since its discovery, the island has become critical for ships returning with cargo from Asia to Europe. In 1815, Saint Helena became the place of exile for Napoleon Bonaparte, who died there in 1821.
Tradition has preserved for us information that the holy Empress Helen was not of noble birth. Her father was the owner of a hotel. She married the famous Roman warrior Constantius Chlorus. It was a marriage not of political convenience, but of love, and in 274 the Lord blessed their union with the birth of their son Constantine.
They lived happily together for eighteen years, until Constantius was appointed ruler of Gaul, Britain and Spain. In connection with this appointment, Emperor Diocletian demanded that Constantius divorce Helen and marry his (the emperor's) stepdaughter Theodora. In addition, the emperor took the eighteen-year-old Constantine to his capital at Nicomedia under the pretext of teaching him the art of war. In fact, the family was well aware that he was virtually a hostage to his father's loyalty to the emperor.
At the time when these events occurred, Elena was just over forty years old. She was torn away from her husband for political gain, and, obviously, the couple have never seen each other since then. She moved as close to her son as possible, to the town of Drepanum, not far from Nicomedia, where her son could visit her. Drepanum was later renamed Elenopolis in her honor, and it was here that she was introduced to Christianity. She was baptized in a local church and for the next thirty years she spent the next thirty years purifying and improving her own soul, which served as preparation for the fulfillment of a special mission, a work for which she was called “equal to the apostles.”
Soon after her conversion, Constantine, who often visited her, met a Christian girl named Minervina at her house. After some time, the young people got married. Two years later, the young wife died of a fever, and Constantine gave their little son, named Crispus, to the care of his mother.
Fourteen years have passed. Constantine's father, a military leader dearly loved by his soldiers, died. Constantine, who showed considerable military valor, achieved the rank of tribune, and, thanks to universal respect in the army, he was elected as his father's successor. He became Caesar of the western lands. Emperor Maximian, seeing a future rival in Constantine, decided to “insure himself”: he married his daughter Fausta to the young military leader, reinforcing his loyalty with ties of kinship. However, it was an unhappy union, and in the next few decades Constantine had to devote more energy and time to fighting his wife's relatives than to the enemies of Rome. In 312, on the eve of the battle against the troops of his brother-in-law Maxentius, Constantine stood with his army at the walls of the capital. That night a fiery cross appeared in the sky, and Constantine heard the words spoken by the Savior Himself, who commanded him to go into battle with banners with the image of the Holy Cross and the inscription “By this victory.” Maxentius, instead of defending himself inside the city walls, went out to fight Constantine and was defeated.
The following year (315), Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, according to which Christianity received legal status, thereby putting an end to Roman persecutions that had lasted (with interruptions) for several centuries. Ten years later, Constantine became the sole Emperor of the eastern and western parts of the Empire, and in 323 he elevated his mother, declaring her Empress. For Elena, who by that time had managed to understand how transitory the joys and bitterness of earthly glory are, the Imperial power itself was of little attraction. However, she quickly realized that her new position gave her the opportunity to participate in the spread of the Christian gospel, especially by building churches and chapels in the Holy Land, in those places where the Lord lived and taught.
Since the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 AD, this land no longer belonged to the Jewish people. The temple was razed to the ground, and the Roman city of Aelia was built on the ruins of Jerusalem. The Temple of Venus was erected over Golgotha and the Holy Sepulcher. Elena's heart burned with the desire to cleanse the holy places from pagan defilement and rededicate them to the Lord. She was already more than seventy years old when she set off on a ship from the coast of Asia Minor to Palestine. When the ship sailed past the islands of Greece, she went ashore on the island of Paros and began to pray to the Lord, asking him to help her find His Cross and promising to build a temple here if her request was fulfilled. Her prayer was answered and she fulfilled her vow. Nowadays, the Ekatontapiliani Church, inside of which stands the temple built then by St. Helena, is the oldest Christian temple in Greece.
Arriving in the Holy Land, she ordered the temple of Venus to be demolished and the rubble taken outside the city walls, but she did not know where her servants should dig to find the Cross in the huge piles of earth, stones and rubbish. She fervently prayed for admonition, and the Lord came to her aid.
This is how her life tells about it:
The discovery of the Holy Cross of the Lord took place in the year 326 from the Nativity of Christ as follows: when the rubble remaining from the buildings that stood here was cleared away at Golgotha, Bishop Macarius performed a prayer service at this place. The people digging the ground felt a fragrance emanating from the ground. This is how the Cave of the Holy Sepulcher was found. The true Cross of the Lord was found with the help of a Jew named Judas, who retained in his memory the ancient legend about its location. He himself, after finding the great shrine, was baptized with the name Kyriakos and subsequently became the Patriarch of Jerusalem. He suffered a martyr's death under Julian the Apostate; The church celebrates his memory on October 28.
Following the instructions of Judas, Elena found, east of the Cave of the Holy Sepulcher, three crosses with inscriptions and nails lying separately. But how was it possible to know which of these three crosses was the True Cross of the Lord? Bishop Macarius stopped the funeral procession passing by and ordered to touch the deceased one by one with all three crosses. When the Cross of Christ was placed on the body, this man was resurrected. The Empress was the first to bow to the ground before the shrine and venerate it. People crowded around, people tried to squeeze forward to see the Cross. Then Macarius, trying to satisfy their desire, raised the Cross high, and everyone exclaimed: “Lord, have mercy.” So on September 14, 326, the first “Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord” took place, and to this day this holiday is one of the Twelve (greatest) Holidays of the Orthodox Church.1
Helena took a piece of the Cross to Byzantium as a gift to her son. However, most of it, encased in silver, remained in the temple she built at the site of its acquisition. Every year on Good Friday it was taken out for worship. A small part of the Holy Cross is still in Jerusalem. Over the centuries, small particles of it were sent to temples and monasteries throughout the Christian world, where they are carefully and reverently kept as priceless treasures.
Saint Helena lived in Jerusalem for two years, leading the restoration of the holy places. She developed plans for the construction of magnificent churches in places associated with the life of the Savior. However, the modern Church of the Holy Sepulcher is not the same church that was built under St. Helena.2 This large building was built in the Middle Ages, and there are many small churches inside it. Including the Holy Sepulcher and Golgotha. Under the floor, on the back side of Calvary Hill, there is a church in honor of St. Helena with a stone slab at the site of the discovery of the Cross.
The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is the same one that was erected by the Empress. There are other churches in the creation of which she was directly involved, for example, the small Church of the Ascension of the Lord on the Mount of Olives (now owned by Muslims), the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary near Gethsemane, the church in memory of the appearance of three angels to Abraham at the Oak of Mamre, the temple on Mount Sinai and the monastery of Stavrovouni near the city of Larnaca in Cyprus.
In addition to the fact that Saint Helen invested enormous energy and strength in the revival of the holy places of Palestine, she, as the Life tells, remembering her own years of life in humiliation and oblivion by the rich and powerful of this world, regularly organized large dinners for the poor of Jerusalem and its surroundings. At the same time, she herself put on a simple work dress and helped serve the dishes.
When she finally returned home, bitter, sorrowful news awaited her there. Her beloved grandson Crispus, who had become a valiant warrior and had already proven himself in the military field, died, and, as some believed, not without the participation of his stepmother Fausta, who did not want this young military leader, popular among the people, to be an obstacle on the way to the Imperial throne her own three sons.
Her work in the Holy Land tired her, and grief fell like a heavy burden on her shoulders. After the news of the death of Crispus, she lived only a year and died in 327. Now her relics (most of them) rest in Rome, where they were transported by the crusaders, and in many places in the Christian world particles of her relics are kept. Emperor Constantine outlived his mother by ten years.
The Church celebrates the memory of the holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Tsar Constantine and his mother Queen Helena on May 21, old style.
What happened to the Life-giving Cross of the Lord after it was found?
After Saint Helena found the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord in 326, she sent part of it to Constantinople, took the second part to Rome in the same year, and left another part in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. There it (this third part) remained for about three centuries, until 614, when the Persians, under the leadership of their king Chosroes, crossed the Jordan and captured Palestine. They brutalized Christians, destroyed churches, and killed priests, monks and nuns. They took away from Jerusalem the sacred vessels and the main treasure - the Cross of the Lord. Patriarch Zechariah of Jerusalem and many people were taken captive. Khosroes superstitiously believed that by taking possession of the Cross, he would somehow gain the strength and power of the Son of God, and he solemnly placed the Cross near his throne, on his right hand. The Byzantine Emperor Heraclius (610-641) offered him peace many times, but Chosroes demanded that he first renounce Christ and worship the sun. This war has become religious. Finally, after several successful battles, Heraclius defeated Chosroes in 627, who was soon overthrown from the throne and killed by his own son Syroes. In February 628, Siroi made peace with the Romans, freed the Patriarch and other captives, and returned the Life-Giving Cross to the Christians.
The cross was first delivered to Constantinople, and there, in the Church of Hagia Sophia, on September 14 (September 27 in the new style) the celebration of its second erection took place. (The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross was established in memory of both the first and second celebrations.) In the spring of 629, Emperor Heraclius took him to Jerusalem and personally installed him in his former place of honor as a sign of gratitude to God for the victory given to him. As he approached the city, holding the Cross in his hands, the Emperor suddenly stopped and could not move further. Patriarch Zacharias, who accompanied him, suggested that his magnificent robe and royal position did not match the appearance of the Lord Himself, humbly carrying His Cross. The emperor immediately changed his magnificent outfit to rags and entered the city barefoot. The Precious Cross was still enclosed in the silver casket. Representatives of the clergy checked the safety of the seals and, opening the casket, showed the Cross to the people. From that time on, Christians began to celebrate the day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross with even greater reverence. (On this day, the Orthodox Church also remembers the miracle of the appearance of the Holy Cross in the sky as a sign of the impending victory of Emperor Constantine over the troops of Maxentius.) In 635, Heraclius, retreating under the onslaught of the Muslim army and foreseeing the imminent capture of Jerusalem, took the Cross with him to Constantinople. In order to avoid its complete loss in the future, the Cross was divided into nineteen parts and distributed to the Christian Churches - Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Rome, Edessa, Cyprus, Georgian, Crete, Ascalon and Damascus. Now particles of the Holy Cross are kept in many monasteries and churches around the world.
Flavia Julia Helena Augusta, Equal-to-the-Apostles Queen Helena, Saint Helena - all these are the names of the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine I, who went down in history thanks to her activities in spreading Christianity and finding the Holy Sepulcher and the Life-Giving Cross during excavations in Jerusalem. On May 21 (June 3), according to the Julian calendar, the celebration of Tsar Constantine I and his mother, Queen Helena, takes place.
The approximate years of Helen's life are 250-337. n. e. She was born in the small village of Drepana, near Constantinople. Later, her son, Emperor Constantine the Great, renamed it Helenopolis (today Hersek). In the early 270s, Helen became the wife of the future Caesar Constantius Chlorus.
On February 27, 272, Helen gave birth to a son, Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantine, the future emperor who made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire. In 305, Constantine was installed as the father-emperor of the western part of the Roman Empire, and in 330 he officially moved the capital of the Roman Empire to Byzantium and named it New Rome.
In 324, Helen’s son proclaimed her “August”: “he crowned his godly mother Helen with the royal crown and allowed her, as a queen, to mint her own coins” and manage the royal treasury. The first coins depicting Helen, where she is titled Nobilissima Femina (“most noble woman”), were minted in 318-319.
In 312, Constantine entered into a power struggle with the usurper Maxentius. On the eve of the decisive battle, Christ appeared to Constantine in a dream, who commanded that the Greek letters XP be inscribed on the shields and banners of his army - and then he would win (“and thus win”). And the next day Constantine had a vision of a cross in the sky. And so it happened, Constantine became the emperor of the western part of the Roman Empire. He managed to completely unite the lands in 321.
Having become the sovereign ruler of the western part of the Roman Empire, Constantine issued the Edict of Milan on religious tolerance in 313, and in 323, when he reigned as the sole emperor over the entire Roman Empire, he extended the Edict of Milan to the entire eastern part of the empire. After three hundred years of persecution, Christians for the first time had the opportunity to openly confess their faith in Christ.
Having abandoned paganism, the emperor did not leave ancient Rome, which was the center of the pagan state, as the capital of the empire, but moved his capital to the east, to the city of Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople. Constantine was deeply convinced that only the Christian religion could unite the huge, heterogeneous Roman Empire. He supported the Church in every possible way, brought back Christian confessors from exile, built churches, and took care of the clergy. Deeply revering the Cross of the Lord, the emperor wanted to find the Life-giving Cross itself, on which our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified. For this purpose, he sent his mother, the holy queen Helen, to Jerusalem, giving her great powers and material resources. Together with Patriarch Macarius of Jerusalem, Saint Helena began a search, and by the Providence of God the Life-Giving Cross was miraculously found in 326. Her discovery of the Cross marked the beginning of the celebration of the Exaltation of the Cross.
While in Palestine, the holy queen did a lot for the benefit of the Church. She ordered to free all places associated with the earthly life of the Lord and His Most Pure Mother from all traces of paganism, and ordered the erection of Christian churches in these memorable places. Above the Cave of the Holy Sepulcher, Emperor Constantine himself ordered the construction of a magnificent temple in honor of the Resurrection of Christ.
The earliest historians (Socrates Scholasticus, Eusebius Pamphilus) write that during Helen’s stay in the Holy Land, three temples were founded at the sites of the Gospel events:
. on Golgotha - the Church of the Holy Sepulcher;
. in Bethlehem - Basilica of the Nativity;
. on the Mount of Olives - a church over the site of the Ascension of Christ.
The Life of Saint Helena, described later in the 7th century, contains a more extensive list of buildings, which, in addition to those listed, includes:
. in Gethsemane - the Church of the Holy Family;
. in Bethany - the church over the tomb of Lazarus;
. in Hebron - the church at the Oak of Mamre, where God appeared to Abraham;
. near Lake Tiberias - the Temple of the Twelve Apostles;
. at the site of the ascension of Elijah - a temple in the name of this prophet;
. on Mount Tabor - a temple in the name of Jesus Christ and the apostles Peter, James and John;
. at the foot of Mount Sinai, near the Burning Bush, there is a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary and a tower for monks
According to the description of Socrates Scholasticus, Queen Helen divided the Life-Giving Cross into two parts: she placed one in a silver vault and left it in Jerusalem, and sent the second to her son Constantine, who placed it in his statue mounted on a column in the center of Constantine Square. Elena also sent two nails from the Cross to her son (one was placed in the diadem, and the second in the bridle).
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In 326, when Queen Helen was returning from Palestine to Constantinople, a storm forced Queen Helen to take refuge in a bay in Cyprus. There are many legends about Queen Helena’s visit to the island of saints, but the fact remains that she founded several Christian monasteries, to which the queen gave particles of the Life-Giving Cross found in the Holy Land. This is the monastery of Stavrovouni, the monastery of the Holy Cross (Omodos village). And also the monastery of Agia Thekla.
Saints Constantine and Helen are deeply revered in Cyprus. Many temples were built in their honor, including:
● Monastery of Constantine and Helena, XII century. (Kuklia);
● Monastery of the Myrtle Cross, XV century (Tsada);
● Temple of the Holy Cross (Platanistas);
● Church of the Holy Cross (Ayia Irini);
● Church of the Holy Cross (Pelendri).
Holy Queen Helena returned to Constantinople after traveling in Cyprus, where she soon died in 327. For her great services to the Church and her labors in obtaining the Life-Giving Cross, Queen Helena is called “Equal to the Apostles.”
Equal to the Apostles Constantine continued his active work in favor of the Church. At the end of his life, he accepted holy baptism, having prepared for it with his whole life. Saint Constantine died on the day of Pentecost in 337 and was buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles, in a tomb he had prepared in advance.
The opening of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society and the activities of the Society in the Holy Land are associated with the names of the holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Emperor Constantine and his mother Queen Helena.
The Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society was created by the Decree of Emperor Alexander III and the public initiative of outstanding Russian people.
On May 8, 1882, the Society’s Charter was approved, and on May 21 (June 3 according to the Gregorian calendar) of the same year, its grand opening took place in St. Petersburg, timed to coincide with the celebration of the day of remembrance of Saints Equal-to-the-Apostles Constantine and Helen, who spread Christianity and erected the first Christian churches in Holy Land and those who have found the Life-giving Cross of the Lord. The names of these saints are associated with the ancient churches of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, as well as the very principle of patronage of the Holy Land by Orthodox emperors.
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The publication was prepared by the chairman of the Cyprus branch of the IOPS Leonid Bulanov
