Helena
Little is known, and much is confused, about the life of the mother of Emperor/St. Constantine I and the discoverer of the True Cross. In spite of many legends about her English or Welsh origins, she was born in the mid-III Century at Drepanum (later Helenopolis) in Bythynia. She was the daughter of an innkeeper and married Constantius Chlorus, who later became emperor and divorced her to marry Theodora, the step-daughter of Emperor Maximian. When Helen's son became emperor at York in 306, he renamed her Augusta and made her the dowager empress. Some say that she encouraged Constantine to tolerate Christians. Eusebius says that she converted to Christianity at the time of the Edict of Toleration and made her first trip to the Holy Land in 326. She established churches on the sites of the Nativity and Ascension. Constantine is said to have ordered Bishop Macarius of Jerusalem to seek the cross after the discoveries of Golgotha and the Holy Sepulchre. Ambrose of Milan and other writers say that Helena was involved in the discovery of the true cross. In 330, Constantine ordered coins minted in honor of his mother, from which action her death around this time is inferred.
Karen Rae Keck
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