Some 300 years after Christ lived, an 80-year-old woman set herself the task of recovering as many artefacts associated with Him as possible. Who was she, what were they, and where are they now, asks Pat Poland.

 

“The Lord save us and guard us,” came the whispered, but clearly audible, remark from the grámhar country-woman kneeling at the back of the small, but beautiful, little chapel, “but hadn’t Saint Thomas a fierce crooked finger?”

The rest of the group erupted in a fit of (barely-suppressed) giggles. “Sshh! Be quiet! Remember where ye are!” scolded Fr Dan, our group’s Spiritual Director, crossly, as he cast a withering look back at us.
You could hear a pin drop.

It was not a very auspicious, to say nothing of reverential, start to our visit to the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem (Basilica di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme), but we forgave her. We knew what she meant and, anyway, her heart was in the right place (as, indeed, were ours).

The Basilica, located in the Esquiline quarter of Rome close by the Aurelian Walls, is one of the ancient seven pilgrim churches of the Eternal City and is forever linked to St Helena, once the Dowager Empress of Rome, and her search for the True Cross.

St Helena (aka St Helen) was the mother of the Roman Emperor, Constantine the Great, and as such, was the Dowager Empress of the Empire. Constantine, the first Emperor to formally convert to Christianity, played a major role in spreading the religion by legalising its practise and fiscally supporting the nascent church. In 313AD the Edict of Milan decriminalized Christian worship.

Early in the 4th Century, Helena chose the site on which the Basilica now stands for her new residence in the suburbs of Rome. Previously, it had been the imperial villa of Emperor Septimius Severus, complete with amphitheatre, circus and baths.

Helena had the Throne Room at the villa converted into a Christian Basilica and deposited soil from the Holy Places in Jerusalem all around the floor, thus acquiring the title ‘in Hierusalem’. The basilica is not dedicated to the Holy Cross of Jerusalem but was considered in a sense to be in Jerusalem, much in the same way that an embassy nowadays is considered extraterritorial.

Later, Pope Gregory l (the ‘Great’) declared the Basilica a titular church (i.e., one that is assigned a cardinal) and it became a destination of constant pilgrimage due to its association with the Holy Relics, collected by Helena, deposited there.
Helena, as will be adduced, was an enthusiastic advocate of Christianity and used her influence and wealth to promote the faith in whatever way she could. She became noted for her selflessness and generosity to the poor and prisoners.

In 324, her son, Constantine, was seized with a great desire to find the True Cross – the cross on which Jesus had been crucified in Jerusalem – and Helena, at the age of eighty, gathered a group of stalwart Christians around her and departed for the Holy Land on an expedition to find the Cross.

Between the years 326AD – 328AD, , she assembled ‘think tanks’ of local elders and intelligentsia and learned that the received wisdom was that the Cross lay beneath the Roman Temple of Venus, which she ordered to be taken down. During the process, the tomb in which Jesus was laid was also uncovered. Three crosses lay close by.

Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own