Did St Helena really find the True Cross? (2023)

Did Helena really find the True Cross?

According to the 1955 Roman Catholic Marian Missal, Helena went to Jerusalem to search for the True Cross and found it 14 September 320.

Legend relates that the True Cross was found by St. Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, during her pilgrimage to the Holy Land about 326. The earliest historical reference to veneration of the True Cross occurs in the mid-4th century.

It was in Jerusalem that, after years of prayer and good works, Helena herself was witness to a miracle. At the foot of Golgotha—the hill where Christ was crucified—workers under her sponsorship found three wooden crosses.

Helena found the Holy Cross, on which Christ had been crucified. According to St. Ambrose, the author of the legend, the finding of the Holy Cross on its own had brought salvation to her son Constantine the Great.

The relic of the True Cross was then restored to its place in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Today there are even more “true cross” fragments on display around the world: on Mount Athos, in Rome, in Brussels, in Venice, in Ghent, in Paris, in Spain, in Serbia – and even in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, where a fragment of the true cross came along as part of the family chapel imported there and rebuilt by Theodore ...

Meskel is celebrated as a grand religious occasion among the Ethiopian Orthodox believers because it is believed that a part of the True Cross has been brought to Ethiopia.

According to Christian tradition, the True Cross was discovered in 326 by Saint Helena, the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great, during a immigration she made to Jerusalem. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was then built at the site of the discovery, by order of Helena and Constantine.

What is the pagan origin of the cross?

For a few centuries, the emblem of Christ was a headless T-shaped Tau cross rather than a Latin cross. Elworthy considered this to originate from Pagan Druids who made Tau crosses of oak trees stripped of their branches, with two large limbs fastened at the top to represent a man's arm; this was Thau, or god.

Helena Goes to the Holy Land. In the year 324, Constantine sent Helena on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in search of the “Holy Sepulcher” and “The True Cross.” The “Holy Sepulcher” is the location of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, while “The True Cross” is the cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified.

The Titulus Crucis (Latin for "Title of the Cross") is a piece of wood kept in the Church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome which is claimed to be the titulus (title panel) of the True Cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified.

The Chapel of the Finding of the Cross is a crypt in the eastern and of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Since the time of the Crusaders it is believed to be the place where a piece of Jesus' cross was found.

According to Constantine's biographer Eusebius, Constantine and his forces saw a cross of light in the sky, along with the Greek words for “In this sign conquer.” That night, Constantine had a dream in which Christ reinforced the message. The emperor marked the Christian symbol of the cross on his soldiers' shields.

A metal detecting enthusiast in Denmark has discovered a 1,100 year old gold crucifix that may be the oldest complete Christian artefact ever found in the country.

The thornless remains are kept in the treasury of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris; they survived a devastating fire in April 2019 that destroyed the church's roof and spire.

The Precious Blood of Christ relic - an ornate golden shrine said to contain two vials of Jesus's blood - was stolen from Fécamp Abbey Church on 1 June, 2022. But just three weeks later, it was dropped on art sleuth Arthur Brand's doorstep - over 490 kilometres away - in the middle of the night.

He may have stood about 5-ft.-5-in. (166 cm) tall, the average man's height at the time.

Jesus' name in Hebrew was “Yeshua” which translates to English as Joshua.

Who found the True Cross in Ethiopia?

Meskel (Ge'ez: መስቀል, romanized: Mesk'el) is a Christian holiday in the Ethiopian Orthodox and Eritrean Orthodox churches that commemorates the discovery of the True Cross by the Roman Empress Helena (Saint Helena) in the fourth century.

The church tradition also records that the then Patriarch of Alexandria gave Ethiopian Emperor Dawit half of the cross in return for protecting Coptic Christians. A fragment of the cross is believed to be held in Ethiopia's Gishen Mariam monastery, about 100 km ( miles) north of the capital.

Eyesus (Ge'ez: ኢየሱስ ) is an Ethiopian name meaning Joshua. It can also mean Yasu (or Yashu), Yesu, or Jesus.

Prior to the Seventh Crusade, Louis IX of France bought from Baldwin II of Constantinople what was venerated as Jesus' Crown of Thorns. It is kept in Paris to this day, in the Louvre Museum.

Many historians are skeptical of the latest claim of the Holy Grail's discovery, and there's no evidence that the Holy Grail even exists.

The relic is coming from the Monastery of the Nativity in Evros, Greece. The dress of the Virgin was reportedly found in 473 AD and bought from a Jewish man in the Holy Land. It is kept at the state museum in Zugdidi, Georgia.

abbreviation for. Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum (the inscription placed over Christ's head during the Crucifixion) Word origin. Latin: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.

Today, the cross is the universal symbol of Christianity. It was not always so. In the early centuries after the time of Jesus Christ, there were other symbols: a dove, a ship, an anchor and a lyre. The best known of these early symbols is the fish.

Found throughout Ireland and Scotland, Celtic crosses predate Christianity and were first used by pagans in the worship of the sun. In pagan times, the Celtic cross was known as a Sun Cross or Sun Wheel and was a symbol of Odin, the Norse god. The circle in the cross is now widely known to represent the sun.

cross, the principal symbol of the Christian religion, recalling the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the redeeming benefits of his Passion and death. The cross is thus a sign both of Christ himself and of the faith of Christians.

Who stole the True Cross?

The True Cross became famous over the centuries as it performed miracle after miracle. According to the legend, the Sassanian king Chosroes II (590-628; Khosrau in Persian) coveting its power, stole the relic and used it to subjugate his citizens.

Mary is present at the foot the Cross, not only as a loving mother, but also as a disciple who follows her Master unto the hour of His exaltation by the Father. He is the obedient Son unto death, and death on the cross.

When the men in that company abandoned him at the hour of mortal danger, Mary of Magdala was one of the women who stayed with him, even to the Crucifixion. She was present at the tomb, the first person to whom Jesus appeared after his resurrection and the first to preach the “Good News” of that miracle.

Helena, later known as Flavia Julia Helena Augusta, mother of Constantine the Great, was credited after her death with having discovered the fragments of the Cross and the tomb in which Jesus was buried at Golgotha. Helena was born at Drepanum in Bithynia, later renamed after her Helenpolis, about the year 250.

Christian tradition holds that Gestas was on the cross to the left of Jesus and Dismas was on the cross to the right of Jesus. In Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend, the name of the impenitent thief is given as Gesmas. The impenitent thief is sometimes referred to as the "bad thief" in contrast to the good thief.

Some crucifixes feature a skull and crossbones beneath the corpus (the depiction of Jesus' body), in reference to a legend that the place of the crucifixion was also the burial place of Adam or, more likely, in reference to the New Testament statement (King James Version: Matthew 27:33, Mark 15:22, and John 19:17) that ...

Instead, the skull at the bottom of the cross is meant to represent Adam, the first man. In his letters, the apostle Paul argues that Christ is the new Adam (1 Corinthians 15:22).

Our sin nailed Jesus to the cross. It is almost as if we call for him to be crucified EVERY TIME WE SIN!

Saint Helena of Constantinople (248/250-328 CE) was the mother of Roman emperor Constantine I (r. 306-337 CE). She famously made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem where tradition claims found Christ's true cross and built the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher.

What did Helena find?

Before 337 it was claimed in Jerusalem that Christ's cross had been found during the building of Constantine's church on Golgotha, under a temple of Venus that had been demolished at the site. Later in the century Helena was credited with the discovery.

Helena was very successful in promoting the spread of Christianity with her political influence and wealth. She is largely responsible for the building of Christian churches in the cities of the Roman Empire, such as Rome and Trier.

Finding the Cross

Helena said it was then, “with sweet smelling dust and a flash of lightning” that she pointed to the place where she instructed Judas to started digging. Finally, they uncovered three crosses, one thought to belong to Jesus Christ, and the others belonging to the two thieves that died alongside Him.

In her final years, she made a religious tour of Syria Palaestina and Jerusalem, during which ancient tradition claims that she discovered the True Cross. The Eastern Orthodox Church, Catholic Church, Oriental Orthodox Churches, and Anglican Communion revere her as a saint, and the Lutheran Church commemorates her.

Today one may visit the Basilica Church of Santa Croce in Jerusalemme (The Holy Cross in Jerusalem), located in Rome, in which a sizable portion of the Holy Cross is enshrined along with numerous other associated relics of the Passion, including a large portion of the sign that had been placed on the Cross saying “ ...

St. Helena is the patron saint of difficult marriages, divorced people, converts, and archaeologists. Her Feast Day is August 18.

The Chapel of the Finding of the Cross, located below the Chapel of Saint Helena, is the deepest point at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where, according to tradition, Empress Helena found the cross of Christ, together with the nails and the titulus, the inscription showing the conviction in three languages.

Saint Helena measures about 16 by 8 kilometres (10 by 5 mi) and has a population of 4,439 per the 2021 census. It was named after Helena, mother of Constantine I. It is one of the most remote islands in the world and was uninhabited when discovered by the Portuguese enroute to the Indian subcontinent in 1502.

Helena, the mother of Constantine I, is believed to have discovered the cross upon which Jesus Christ was crucified.

The majority of St. Helenians are Anglican. Other religions in St. Helena include (in alphabetic order): the Baháʼí Faith, the Baptist church, Buddhism, Roman Catholicism, and Seventh-day Adventism.