HELENA

HELENA, St. (ca. 250-ca. 330). The mother of Constantine the Great (q.v.), she was the daughter of an innkeeper in Roman Bithynia (whom legend made into a British king) who became the concubine of Constantius Chlorus, Constantine’s father. She was faithful to both her man and her son, and appears to have influenced the latter’s conversion to Christianity. Helena together with Olga of Rus’ may be indirectly credited with the conversion of two great empires, the Byzantine and Russian. As a patroness of the Church advanced in years, she is associated with a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 326 and Constantine’s active program of basilica construction there (Mt. of Olives, Bethlehem), as well as with the discovery of the Cross of Christ. There may be some historical grounds for this identification since the tradition has 4th-c. roots. She is commemorated in the Orthodox Church on the same day, May 21, as her son. (See Feasts, Twelve Great-Exaltation of the Cross.)