The Glorious Saints and Great Sovereigns Constantine and Helen, Equal to the Apostles

Constantine was the son of Constantius Chlorus, Caesar of the western provinces of the Roman Empire. He was born around 280 in Naissus (today’s Niš, in Serbia).

He was proclaimed emperor on his father’s death in 306. When he learned in 312 that Maxentius and Maximinus had allied against him to get rid of him, he marched on Italy.

There a cross of light appeared to him beneath the disc of the sun, with the words: “In this sign you will conquer.” He fought a fierce battle against his enemy near the Milvian Bridge on the Tiber on October 28.

Maxentius was defeated and drowned in the river. The next day Constantine entered Rome in triumph, and the Senate proclaimed him emperor of the West, while Licinius remained master of the East.

In 313 the Emperors Constantine and Licinius issued a joint edict in Milan, covering the whole Roman Empire, East and West, recognizing full freedom of religion.

This brought the persecution of Christians in the Empire to an end. But Licinius, eaten up with envy at Constantine’s growing influence, went back to persecuting and killing Christians in the East under his rule. Constantine went to war against him and defeated him in 324. So he became undisputed master of the Roman Empire, East and West.

The Church enjoyed peace, and Christianity triumphed. He moved the capital of the Empire from Rome to Byzantium, on the shores of the Bosphorus, at the heart of the Empire; he rebuilt it and gave it his name, so that it was called Constantinople, “New Rome”, after the former capital, “Old Rome”.

Wanting to put an end to the Arian turmoil and to establish the true Christian teaching on the divinity of the Word, he gathered the bishops of the whole world at Nicaea in 325. This First Ecumenical Council proclaimed that the Father and the Son share one and the same divine nature, and Arius and his followers were anathematized.

The council was presided over by Hosius, Bishop of Córdoba in Spain, and two legates of Pope Sylvester.

In 326 Constantine sent his mother, Saint Helen, to Jerusalem to search for the precious Cross.

Helen achieved her wish in 327. She then returned to Constantinople and from there to Rome, where she departed to God around 329. Constantine fell ill in Nicomedia, received holy baptism and departed to God on May 22, 337.

His remains were taken to the capital and buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles, which he had built.

His mother Helen was buried in Rome, in one of its churches, and her remains were placed in a porphyry sarcophagus that is still preserved today in the Vatican Museums.

Metropolitan Neophytos Edelby