Born: c. 248, Drepanon, Bithynia, Asia Minor
Died: c. 328, Nicomedia; Western feast day August 18; Eastern feast day [with Constantine] May 21
Saint Helena was a concubine and possibly wife of the Roman emperor Constantius I, and mother of Constantine the Great, emperor of Rome. She was probably born in Drepanum, later called Helenopolis in her honour, in the ancient Roman province of Bithynia. When Constantius was named Caesar, or successor to the throne of the Roman Empire, in 293, he abandoned her to marry the step-daughter of Maximian. She devoted the rest of her life to religious pilgrimages, visiting Jerusalem about 325 and founding there the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Church of the Nativity. According to later legends, in Palestine she discovered the cross on which Jesus was crucified. Her feast day is August 18.
