St. Helen

Helen is also known as Elene, Helena, and Flavia Julia Helena Augusta. She was the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, who gave her the title Augusta after he claimed the throne. Her feast is celebrated on August 18 by the Western Church and on May 21 by the Eastern Church. Helen was born around 248 in Asia Minor. Her husband, Constantius Chlorus was co-regent of the Western Roman Empire and he divorced Helen in order to marry another woman whose family was politically connected. When Constantine ascended to the throne, he brought his mother home and treated her with honor. Helen converted to Christianity late in life and built many churches with her wealth. In 326, at age eighty, she went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where she found the True Cross buried in rubble. The excavators found three crosses and a miracle for a sick woman when she touched one of the crosses was taken as proof that it was the True Cross. Helen built a church at the spot the cross was discovered and sent pieces of the Cross to Rome and Constantinople. The Feast of the Holy Cross on September 14 commemorates the finding of the Cross. Helen died of natural causes in 328. She is the patron of the divorced, of difficult marriages, of converts, and archeologists.