Dear Kozy,
The mother of Constantine the Great, born about the middle of the third
century after the birth of Christ. The assertions made by English writers of
the Middle Ages, according to which Helena was hypothetically said to have
been the daughter of a British prince, has no historical foundation. She was
often referred to as the daughter of a stable keeper.(.She must be related
to Mauger)
In 308 AD, Constantine, a real mummies boy, brought his mother to the
imperial court, conferred on her the title of Augusta, ordered that all
honour should be paid her as the mother of the sovereign, and had coins
struck bearing her effigy.
In 326 AD Helena went to Jerusalem. She and St. Macarius, bishop of the
city searched for Christ's burial and crucifixion places. . The Jews had
hidden the Cross in a ditch or well, and covered it over with stones They
did not want holy broke tourists! Only a chosen few among the Jews knew the
exact spot where it had been hidden, and one of them, A well named Jew,
Judas pointed it out to the excavators. Judas afterwards became a Christian
saint. During the excavation three crosses were found, but because the
'titulus', fancy word for inscription, was detached from the Cross of
Christ, there was no means of identifying it. Macarius caused the three
crosses to be carried, one after the other, to the bedside of a worthy woman
who was at the point of death. The touch of the other two did nothing; but
on touching that upon which Christ had died the woman got suddenly well
again. The Breviary of Paris says that St. Helena. had sought to discover
which was the True Cross and that she caused a man already dead and buried
to be carried to the spot, whereupon, by contact with the third cross, he
came to life. Others claim that the inscription, had remained fastened to
the Cross.
The discovery of the True Cross, is called for some unknown reason 'the
Invention'. No one speaks about the splinters of 'true Cross' scattered up
and down the world and there are enough of them around to build London.
She died when she was about eighty years old in circa 330 AD. Helena's body
was brought to Constantinople and entombed in the imperial vault of the
church of the Apostles. Her remains were transferred in 849 AD to the Abbey
of Hautvillers, in the Archdiocese of Reims.
Sinclair
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