As the savage persecution of Diocletian, enthusiastically enforced by co-Emperors Galerius and Maximin Daia, seemed to mark a low point for the status of Christianity in the Roman Empire, grace yet prevailed, and the Empire rather suddenly became a patron and protector of Christianity.

St. Helena is thought to have been of humble origin, the daughter of an inn-keeper, and born around 250 in Bithynia; what is now the Black Sea coast of Turkey. (There is a rich English tradition of her hailing from Britain, but that is perhaps a discussion for another article). She, a pagan herself, married a military officer and politician–Constantius Chlorus, bearing him a son, Constantine, around 274. Despite their seemingly happy marriage, Constantius took the opportunity to become the Caesar (junior co-Emperor) of the Western Roman Empire, and put Helena away in favor of the step-daughter of the Emperor Maximian, Augustus (senior co-Emperor) of the West.

When Constantius Chlorus died suddenly in 306, his troops stationed in England proclaimed his son, Constantine–still loyal to his mother, and now demanding that she be known as Augusta–as their Emperor. This is the very Constantine that contended with the aggressively pagan Maxentius, son of Maximian, for control of the West. Constantine rather famously instructed his troops to put Christian emblems on their shields just prior to his battle with Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge over the Tiber in 312–having a vision that “In hoc signo vinces,” “In this sign you will conquer.” While Constantine did not immediately accept baptism, he did legalize Christianity with the Edict of Milan in 313, and became a great patron of the Church.

For St. Helena, her son’s experience with Christianity seems to have brought about her conversion. Eusebius of Caesarea writes, “She became under his influence such a devout servant of God, that one might believe her to have been from her very childhood a disciple of the Redeemer of mankind.”

Like the Roman Empire itself, St. Helena had suffered much at the hands of a pagan society, but now embraced Christianity. St. Helena, in her old age, journeyed to Palestine around 324, searching for, and finding, the relics of the True Cross. She, like her son, became a great patron of the Church, and was responsible for the construction of a number of Churches. Indeed, the site of her palace in Rome is now the location of the Church of Santa Croce in Jerusalemme, where those relics she discovered in the Holy Land are now housed. She died around 330, famous for her charity to the poor.