Talk:Helena, mother of Constantine I

NOTE

I would like to note , that in the other article : http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Constantine_the_Great_and_Christianity , it was mentioned that Emperor Constantine was exposed to Christianity through his mother Elena. Nothing is mentioned about that in this article ?/? + I am wondering if there are any accounts that do mention about the conversion of Constantine to Christianity + was there any factors that made his adoption of christianity necessary at that time 62.84.82.3 (talk) 09:09, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Murder?

The article described the execution of Fausta and Crispus as "murder." That wording is false, in that it denotes that their executions were illegal. While historians cannot know whether their trials were fair, they were tried and convicted. In context, that wording makes Helena out to be a murderer, and implies that an unrepentant murderer has been labelled a saint by the religious hierarchies of most of Christendom. 75.148.21.9 (talk) 12:39, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi let's talk!

I removed the following links:

• Who is Saint Helena?
  This link is dead
• A listing of King Coels of British Legend
  This is about the King Coels. Even if Helena is related to them, they belong on the King Coel page, not the Helena page
• A genealogical tree of her based on the legend
  This is a highly speculative genealogy based on the King Coel legend.

In general, the King Coel connection seems completely legendary—see the Geoffrey of Monmouth page for discussion. --Macrakis 05:57, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I removed the following link due to redirect and request for subscription in order to view content which is most likely not relevant:

• Stirnet: Britons1 (shows her as a possible daughter of Old King Cole)

• Numismatica (talk) 02:28, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Apparently Hu12 does not know how to follow a link. The links I posted to to Wildwinds.com and to Coinproject.com are not only non-commercial, but they are relevant to the topic. Where you have ONE photograph of a coin of Helena, coinproject has 125 unique examples of coins of Helena, all of which have been VETTED by experts and verified that the attribution is correct. Coinproject has over 80% of all known types of coins which were struck in the name of Helena and several that are unpublished. My ID is going to be used to provide links to numismatic data where available for cities (for Greek and Roman cities which struck coins) and the emperors and their families as well as other figures from ancient history. I will also use this ID to correct numismatic errors in articles whenever they are found. Frankly, I chose Helena and one other page because Helena has been completed on Coinproject and has been edited and every coin verified as to accuracy. --Numismatica (talk) 14:41, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I've re-added those, as they seem ok to me. Not directly commercial. Johnbod (talk) 14:56, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

User Numismatica is actually the blocked account User talk:Coinproject, operating with a Confilct of interest with an open intent to spam, as stated above "My ID is going to be used to provide links to numismatic data where available". This violates SPAM, WP:COI, WP:SOCK and WP:NOT. Additionally a user-edited website like Coinproject is not a valid reliable source and not a valid external link. The link has been removed--Hu12 (talk) 00:40, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

As regards WP:EL both sites seem to me to fall under: "Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject and cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues,[3] amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks), or other reasons" and "Sites that fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources". Note that I restored the links, and I have no COI. Johnbod (talk) 02:22, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Understood, however the link does fail WP:EL also. The site itself states;

"...anyone can contribute to improving the site...CoinProject was designed so that a virtually unlimited number of volunteers can share the work and contribute by submitting, approving or verifying coins..." ---coinproject.com/about-us.php

As a result it fails several of Wikipedia's core content policies, specifically; ” Questionable_sources” and ”Self-published sources. As such, it fails as an external link because claims it is "accurate material" or from "knowledgeable sources" is undermined. More over, as an external link, its "indirectly related" (#13), clearly "unverifiable research" (#2) nor does it truly provide a unique resource (#1) as there are plenty of other Reliable and Verifiable alternatives available. Wikipedia owes much of its success to its openness. However, that very openness sometimes attracts people who seek to exploit the site, as is the case with CoinProject.com. It just doesn't meet Wikipedia's inclusion criteria.--Hu12 (talk) 03:22, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

The rudeness of the original poster's tone and Hu12's valid points about WP policy not-with-standing, these are sites that classicists use to view ancient coin types that aren't always easily accessible via traditional print media. I don't know the intersection between this fact and WP policy.  ^davidiad_.:τ 03:28, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't think they are valid. The standards for EL's are not as high as for WP:RS in articles, & he would presumably fail the Oxford English Dictionary for the same reasons. External links, unlike references for article text, are not required to meet WP:V. What are the reliable and verifiable online alternatives supposed to be? Johnbod (talk) 04:02, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Either way, coinproject.com fails Wikipedia's External links policy #1,#2,#4 and #13 respectivly. On another note; the image that already exists in the article (File:Follis-Helena-trier_RIC_465.jpg) is more detailed than the comparable one on coinproject.com here. I mention this because it would appear that CoinProject's image was simply harvested from another site, forumancientcoins.com here, a site which is widely used on wikipedia already and considered a web resource per Portal:Numismatics. This gives me serious pause for potential copyvio (Linking to copyrighted works) and extremely problematic when it comes to a site(coinproject.com) where "anyone can contribute ".--Hu12 (talk) 04:37, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

I reviewed the two links in question, to Coinproject.com and wildwinds.com. I think they are good links ... but I am interested in coins, so of course I would like them. I believe links to databases of ancient Roman images of an ancient Roman citizen would make the article better. I feel like the coins are Primary Sources, and the two links are better than the existing links to sources like the Catholic Encycolopedia. Let me ask in general, does Wikipedia want links to coin and museum databases? Can we decided that separately from the issue of links to a particular database?

Esnible (talk) 02:27, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Currently forumancientcoins.com has 5 Helena coins, all scuzzy bronze ones, none on sale for more than 40USD. Once they sell them they will presumably go. CoinProject have 127 Helena coins, including several gold issues. I don't think I would approve of forumancientcoins.com being linked to here, as the value is too little. CoinProject say (home page) they have the owners' permissions to use the photos & I don't see any prima facie reason to doubt that - the images have no real commercial value, and dealers and collectors like to show off their stuff. Coinproject is evidently intended to represent a permanent and comprehensive resource. They all use the same standard catalogues for their information. Their "anyone can contribute" in fact requires registration, and additions are then shown as red until reviewed by a moderator; no doubt there is copyright declaration at input. A very different story to Wikipedia. To answer Esnible, we certainly do want to link to good database resources. Johnbod (talk) 03:32, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

I totaly agree with Johnbod. I don't understand why links to pages as wildwinds or coinproject shouldn't be here. I think they are great historical source and they could be useful even for non numismatics. Jan Bajer 15:16, 10 December 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Johny SYSEL (talk • contribs)

It seems that the majority agree that links to both coinproject and wildwinds meet the requirements of being acceptable external links on Wikipedia. In reviewing both sites they obtain permission from dealers and collectors and incorporate the information in what is hopefully a stable database of such material. The big difference between both sites appears to be that coinproject requires confirmation that the standard reference citations are correct before a record is considered trusted and that there is a mechanism in place for errors to be reported by users of the site.

What is the status of this? Quite some time has elapsed with no apparent resolution. It appears that the original contributor was blocked. But Johnbod restored the removed links because he felt they were acceptable and has no COI. Others commenting have also stated they felt the links were valuable. As a coin collector I use both resources regularly. I also use http://numisbids.com (currently running auctions), http://sixbid.com (also currently running auctions), http://acsearch.info (a database of coins sold at auction) and a few others. While I would not share sixbid or numisbid on Wiki because of their commercial nature I see no problem with the others as well as the original two links deleted. IMHO this seems to be an example of a heavy handed use of moderator privileges. Salsany (talk) 17:38, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Ethnic Origins of Helena of Constantinople ???

I have a question for wikipedians in regards to Saint Helena's Ethnic background, I noticed it's not mentioned in the article and was wondering if anybody on this site knew or had any sources which could confirm what her ethnicity/s were? Thankyou in regards E-mail adress 13:14, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

St Helena was born in the city of Drepanum in Sicily, so she was a Greek. Though the definition of a Greek at the time was not what it used to be or what it is today. Everybody was Roman, either Pagan of Christian. Colossus 16:26, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Read the article, this is not so clear as we wish for. She was "probably" born in Drepanum for her son renamed that city to honour her. An single Roman historian writes that she was born there. But even if this were true (and far as we know, it probably is) this does not make her atomatically a Greek. Flamarande 13:27, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Wow! The statement above is the worst English I've come across on Wikipedia yet!!

It's not Drepanum in Sicily, but Drepanum in Bithynia (which is also already in the article). As Flamarande said, only one author (Procopius, iirc, i.e. rather late) mentiones her birthplace; another hint may be that Constantine renamed the city as Helenopolis. This is all we know, and the article summarizes that very neatly. Varana 15:54, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia avoids to mention the ethnic origin of famous christian people of that era if they are Greek (or some other Greek people in other eras, for that matter). The list goes on of how many of the Greek Saints (St. Catherine, St. George, St. Barbara, and please don't give me the common 'Roman' label) and other prominent Greek Christians of the first centuries A.D. are deliberately not mentioned as ethnic Greeks in here, clearly as a tactic of depreciating their ethnic origins as their work firstly saved Christianity during that time of persecutions, and then made it flourish and spread throughout the world through the Greek Orthodox Church and the Byzantium Empire that lasted more than a thousand years.

The common excuse of this kind of Wikipedia authors of such articles is: "no significant evidence". No evidence would be good enough for them anyway that can even be provided in our days for them or any of their fellow citizens, even by paper. Would you like a DNA test? It is the sickening tactic of hiding behind false political correctness and suspicious intentions. So what we have is people who had Greek names, born in Greek cities in various greater Greek regions (whether that be Greek mainland or ancient Greek colonies that had remained Greek for hundreds of years), whose parents bore Greek names, who spoke Greek and had Greek education and who wrote in Greek, are not mentioned as Greeks in wikipedia. They are something vague. Maybe they are Chinese, or English, as someone said of St. Helen in this article.

Things are becoming ridiculous and disrespectful. This Wikipedia-author considered it important that a romantic fool's nonsense about the Greek St. Helen being English (something about blond hair was his argument) was worth mentioning in the article. May I remind you that England did not even exist during St. Helen's lifetime or even a century after. I understand that the English, drunk by their accomplished imperial plutocratic world, and while lacking this kind of historic heritage, are resorting to romantic dreams and are flying in high clouds, which includes other poems about Jesus having walked on England and so on. The same ideas the Scottish have for St. Andrew. I am afraid their descent from the clouds will be meet the earth roughly.

The English should always remember that their flag bears the cross of the Greek Saint George. And whatever distaste the English may have for this fact is not due their own assertions but due to those who have been ruling the English for hundreds of years now, and have infected the English with their mentality and obscure ill-intentioned tactics (but that's a different subject; at least let it be known I am not attacking the English). But for the English of today to know that their flag is of a Greek Saint may struck as odd or unacceptable, but why?. This is how far they have gone in manipulating and misinforming the English minds for many decades now.

So it goes that the Greeks St Catherine, St George, St Barbara, St Helen and many other great Greek Christians of that troubled age that shaped Christianity, fail to be mentioned as Greek by illiterate internet authors. Kassos (talk) 22:26, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Contradictory dates

The text says she lived between 248-329, but in the saint template it says 250-330. Which is it? Odedee 00:26, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Dear Odedee,

Your point is valid. The first website in the external links section supports the dates in the text and the Catholic Encyclopedia supports the dates in the infobox (the year of death, at least). The Catholic Forum Saints Index explicitly states the years of death and birth as the ones in the infobox. More research needs to be done and a consensus reached. Hope this will happen soon. Thanks for pointing out this discrepancy.

Yours,

Savio mit electronics 13:36, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

We have no primary source for what year she was born. The closest we get is when we see that she was "about 80" on her return from Palestine. We cannot use that to pin an exact year of birth on her. So I've modified the infobox and the inline text to reflect that looseness. And I've removed the Cat "Birth in 250" since she wasn't, or at least we don't have any evidence that she was. Wjhonson (talk) 23:56, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Journey Home from the Holy Land

Here in Cyprus it is widely told that Helen was shipwrecked on her journey home in Cyprus. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.207.156.26 (talk) 12:48, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Faith, legends, facts

Some parts of this subject have been written with much objectivity, encyclopedic, like: "She is traditionally credited with finding the relics of the True Cross." IMHO such a statement doesn't even need a reference, the christian tradition is littered with such credits. Other parts of the text seem to be written by someone who seems to place his/her personal believes and the legends over facts:

when she touched the third and final cross she suddenly recovered

She also found the nails of the crucifixion.

part of Jesus Christ's tunic, pieces of the holy cross and the world's only pieces of the rope to which Jesus was tied with on the Cross.

Such sentences in christian subjects make it very hard to read for non-christians. Please keep that in mind when your adding/editing christian subjects. And please rewrite such phrases to meet with Wiki standards if you see them. I'm not very well capable of doing that myself because of my limited knowledge of the English language.Maggy Rond (talk) 11:55, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Why is it hard for you to read? Str1977 ^(talk) 17:33, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps it's hard to read because it's a total failure of Wikipedia's quality standards, having no empirical or documentary evidence mentioned whatsoever for it, not to mention the sheer unlikelihood of these things having happened? 74.128.201.242 (talk) 23:21, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Most likely this is not a question of legibility coherency, more a point of received tradition being printed as fact. Primary and secondary (Butler et al.) sources, in general, seem scant in this section, let alone the fact that there is minimal referencing through endnote citation. I suggest that this section be rewritten using these, particularly period writings. Note should be made of the discrepancies in timelines from these sources, such as Eusebius, Jerome, &c., and possibly mentioning that the main source of the elevation of the cross is the pet scribe and biographer of Constantine; this fact automatically introduces bias. If the statements are rewritten to indicate that they are the beliefs of the various Catholic/Orthodox sects, preferably including a compare/contrast of differing traditions, then that should clarify the information for non-Christian readers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.186.226.226 (talk) 16:55, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Standard capitals

I propose this article move to Helena (empress) as we do not automatically capitalize monarchical titles. Fæ (talk) 08:45, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Done! Zero^talk 02:36, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be sensible to move her to Empress Helena instead? Lots of sources call her "Empress Helena", no sources call her "Helena (empress)", and natural disambiguation is obviously preferable to parenthetical. bobrayner (talk) 21:40, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure about that last on two counts. One is that Empress Helena is by no means the most common way of referring to her - mostly she is known as St Helen(a), so the issue is by no means straightforward if we refer to WP:COMMONNAME. The second may be considered more esoteric, but her title was actually that of Augusta and the tendency in modern academic circles seems to be to call her Helena Augusta when referring to he historical figure. We do not have a contemporary equivalent to Augusta and so it has come to be translated as empress, but I am not at all sure that Imperatrix and Augusta are really the same thing. 'Empress' seems to me rather misleading as a title. That is by no means underplaying her contemporary political status; Eusabius describes her journey to the Holy Land very much in terms of an imperial progress but the sources do not really tell us enough about context. I am no specialist and I know the naming of articles for Roman historical figures is problematic. --AJHingston (talk) 09:42, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Lutheran saint?

The article states that "She is revered as a saint by [...] the Lutheran, and the Anglican churches."

I am a Lutheran, and to the best of my knowledge we do not revere any saints at all.--Oz1cz (talk) 10:43, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Some Lutherans do, see this and this. However I don't see any source provided in our article for this assertion. It either has to be sourced or removed. Zero^talk 11:00, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

This interesting article discusses the concept of saintliness in Lutheran theology. Zero^talk 11:05, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Honorifics

Honorifics are germane to the article per WP:COMMONNAME. Tgeorgescu (talk) 13:50, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

We don't use honorifics here per WP:NPOV.. If you want to add honorifics here, then you should firstly go and add honorifics in articles like Muhammad, Ali, and Umar — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.233.116.79 (talk) 14:12, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Please read the MoS Biographies - use of Honorific prefixes samtar ^{t} 14:15, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

"Scholars," "Idolatry," and Jesus-Is-Lord.Com

"Helena's search for Christian relics and the official establishment of these icons are viewed by some scholars to be the introduction of idolatry into the Church. "

Took this line out of the Relic Discoveries section. If you look up the source online, (just Google "Milller 1967 Church History"), you get links to Jesus-Is-Lord.com and Stempublishing. This does not fully discount it as a source, but it does lend it some dubiousness. When you look deeper into said source, you find the language of conspiracy theorists and fundamentalists who think that even the traditional Protestant Churches are too corrupted by Rome to be true Christians; not the language of a serious scholar. There are theories about how the opening chapters of Revelation are about the rise of "Popery" and Protestants who were not true believers (and more wacky weirdness.) If someone wishes to put the phrase back in the work, it should be specified that it is "Helena's search for Christian relics and the official establishment of these icons are viewed by one fundamentalist 'scholar' and a few nuts to be the introduction of idolatry into the Church."

References

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Helena (empress). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.goarch.org/en/special/listen_learn_share/constantineandhelen/learn/
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120308064711/http://www.moplants.com/archives/vatican_gardens.php to http://www.moplants.com/archives/vatican_gardens.php
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20081229131327/http://www.dur.ac.uk/r.h.britnell/Portrait%204.htm to http://www.dur.ac.uk/r.h.britnell/Portrait%204.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 07:22, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Greek Saint

Well, another Greek saint whose ethnic background is not mentioned. Others being Saint George, Saint Barbara, Saint Catherine. Saint Nicholas is mentioned as Greek but I don't know how that slipped away from them. Yes, St. Helen was Greek from the Greek City of Drepana, from Greek Minor Asia which is the other half of Greece and whose capital is Constantinople. Simple facts that bring allergy to Anglo-Saxons, because when St. Helen lived, when she was discovering the Cross of Christ and when her son established the first christian capital of the Byzantine empire that lasted more than a thousand years.....well at that time...England did not even exist. But you see those rich Anglo-Saxons now trying to write history as they please. Learn to live with the truth little English nobodies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ate Nike (talk • contribs) 07:45, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

It says clearly where she was born, and that she was the mother of Constantine the Great(whose article states she is Greek). What else could she be? And what is this character on about, with his irrelevant slurs? Suggest this section be removed, as it is no help to the article. 77.69.34.203 (talk) 05:02, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Saint Helena is the proper name

I can understand many people here are not acquainted with byzantine history and East Orthodox Christianity tradition but there is where "Helena the empress" is found. There is her place in history. There is a discussion whether to rename Constantine the Great simply Constantine I. This discussion too ignores his uncontested place in byzantine history and East Orthodox Christianity. Would you rename Alexander the great? There were a few Macedonian kings with the same name. But renaming him would simply look bizarre. That is how it looks "Helena the empress". Beickus (talk) 03:17, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

And how do you propose to disambiguate the article from Saint Helena, the British island named after the empress? Dimadick (talk) 05:40, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Basil

I have seen legends associating the plant Basil with the supposed discovery of the true cross; stating that its sweet smell guided Helena to the location, and it was then named ‘basil’=the royal plant. See “The Cretan Runner”, by George Psychoundakis (Part 3, ‘Flight into Egypt’).Is this true? And if so, is there a connection between this and the use of the plant by the Orthodox to sprinkle holy water, and the placing of pots of basil in many Orthdox churches? It could be part of the cultural history of the plant, as it relates to Helena. 77.69.34.203 (talk) 05:02, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Helena (empress). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20081014122028/http://www.martyrsandsaints.org/main/era_of_martyrdom/04th_century/Saint_Helen.htm to http://www.martyrsandsaints.org/main/era_of_martyrdom/04th_century/Saint_Helen.htm
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080509195201/http://www.sainteleanor.org/STEleanor.htm to http://www.sainteleanor.org/STEleanor.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 22:52, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Hagiography versus biography

I have serious concerns about the phrasing of a number of sentences which imply that events/ actions have been factually established. Specifically "She was responsible for the construction or beautification of two churches, the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, and the Church of the Pater Noster|Church of Eleona]] on the [[Mount of Olives, sites of Christ's birth and ascension, respectively"; and "Emperor Hadrian had built during the 130s a temple over the site of Jesus's tomb near Calvary, and renamed the city Aelia Capitolina"; and "Local tradition holds that she imported hundreds of cats from Egypt or Palestine in the fourth century to rid a monastery of snakes." My problem is that is not a fact that the churches referred to were built on the site of Christ's birth and ascension. She may have believed that they were - and later tradition may hold that to be the case - but there is no evidence to suggest categorically that such buildings were in fact located in the right places (and since no human can "ascend" to Heaven the latter is manifestly a nonsense. I have suggested using the word "supposed" or "believed" as a compromise. Likewise we don't know that Hadrian built a temple over the site of Jesus's tomb - maybe that's the belief but again no categorical evidence. Finally ridding monasteries of snakes by using cats is a miracle and not a scientific fact. Contaldo80 (talk) 22:23, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Sir, you have to understand, that what we do is quote sources. We already say "According to tradition"... Adding the words "allegedly" or changing the word "tradition" to folk-tale is not how we usually write these articles. Helena, ACCORDING to tradition, rid city of snakes. The use of allegedly is not necessary anymore, since all of the phrases are understood to be ACCORDING TO TRADITION. Hope that clarifies the issue. And please, remember, this is how we write all religious articles. Picking on Christians alone is not constructive. God bless --SleeplessNight12 (talk) 22:28, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Where in the talk above have I mentioned changing "tradition" to "folk-tale"? My point has been that reference to "tradition" is simply not accurate enough - it may be a tradition that Helena got rid of all the snakes in a monastery but it's doubtful as a verifiable action. Religious articles must abide by the same guidance as all other articles - there isn't a special way to write them. I won't dignify the comment about "picking on Christians". People are free to believe what they want but religiously-motivated editors must be careful to observe editing behaviours in line with a secular encyclopaedia. Contaldo80 (talk) 02:51, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Sir, once again listen to what I am saying. This encyclopedia already indicates that much of the information comes from Christian tradition. It's like saying "According to the Bible, Jesus cured a leper"... You might not believe he did, but saying "According to the Bible, Jesus allegedly healed a leper" is already redundant. Since, according to the Bible Jesus absolutely did it. Now whether the Biblical account is historical is another discussion, but what Wikipedia does, is present what these sources say. If the sources say Helena found the true cross, we should indicate that Saint Helena found the True Cross ACCORDING to the source. The reliability of the source should be discussed separately. At least, that is my perspective. I am open for a compromise, but I think changing the word "tradition" to "folk-tale" is unnecessary denigration of Christian beliefs. Hope that helps. --SleeplessNight12 (talk) 03:17, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

You have no understanding of how to use sources for historical analysis. The likelihood of Helena finding three crosses over 300 years after the death of the Nazarene preacher, Jesus of Nazareth, is extremely unlikely. But we are fine to say that a source indicated that she had found what she thought were the crosses and other odd paraphernalia. We can't say that she did as a fact. Particularly as the Bible didn't even exist as a work of literature at this stage! Contaldo80 (talk) 00:28, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Once again, you referring to a Byzantine Orthodox tradition as "folk-tale" is unnecessary and uncalled for, that is not how we usually write these articles. I will let others decide. It is clear you do not want to listen to what I am saying so let other people decide. --SleeplessNight12 (talk) 01:44, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

I think this goes beyond this article. If we apply the same methodology as suggested by the OP to every religious article, then we have to flood every religious article with "claims", "supposeds", "folk tales" etc.. I don't think this is a viable proposition. But what I think ultimately doesn't matter. What I do believe however is that the community must decide either through a centralised discussion or perhaps starting with an RfC here. Dr. K. 02:34, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

• Note Last I checked travel guides are not reliable sources(example: Dubin, Marc (2009). The Rough Guide To Cyprus). I seriously hope no one is using this in the article[1]. --Kansas Bear (talk) 03:04, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

I completely agree. We would need to change every time Muhammad is referred to as a "prophet" to "alleged prophet". Or when a prophet's grave is mentioned we would need to call it "alleged grave." It is unfair to pick on this one article. All our religious articles are written the same way this one is. --SleeplessNight12 (talk) 03:58, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm afraid you just don't understand the point. Muhammad can be referred to as a "prophet" as that is an individual regarded as being in touch with the Divine. It is not acceptable to mix miracles and hagiography up with history and facts. I don't care how offended religious editors get this is not what we should expect of Wikipedia. Contaldo80 (talk) 21:34, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Muhammad can be referred to as a "prophet" as that is an individual regarded as being in touch with the Divine. Well, this statement is really vague. Regarded by whom? As far as I know, definitely not by everyone. But that's ok. I still wouldn't want someone to go to Mohammed's article and start slapping "supposeds" everywhere a divine attribute of Mohammed is asserted. Also statements like I don't care how offended religious editors get this is not what we should expect of Wikipedia. don't help. Please don't label editors who disagree with you as "religious". Dr. K. 01:33, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

I certainly don't get the impression that the article reads like a "hagiography". That is gross exaggeration and simply not credible. "Alleged" is inappropriate for something that occurred 17 centuries ago. "According to tradition" does the job far better and makes "allegedly" redundant. I also agree with Dr.K. that personalizing the discussion and casting aspersions is unconstructive and should be avoided. Khirurg (talk) 02:17, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

There is an ongoing investigation into SleeplessNight12 so I don't propose to discuss my interactions with them here. However, I do have an important point to make. I came to this article about Helena to improve my historical understanding of her. She is primarily a historical figure and notable in being the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine and may have influenced his conversion to Christianity. I was genuinely interested in her visit to Palestine and what she was said to have found. I was keen to extract historical fact from legend as far as possible. This is interesting because it can help shed light on the early days of Christianity. I am conscious that Christians also revere here from a religious perspective. I am content for the article to note that. I am not content, however, to have the article present her as a religious figure first and a historical one second. And to use the vagueness of historical sources and legend to make non-historical claims. We know with some certainty that Helena existed as a real person. We know less for sure that the Nazarene preacher Jesus existed; although I think on balance this is quite likely. We can therefore assume he died in the way that believers indicated (crucified) but we know he did not rise from the dead (which is scientifically impossible). Therefore the language needs to reflect the ambiguity between historical fact and religious legend. Listing stories about cats is amusing but really more on the legend or folktake sideContaldo80 (talk) 23:07, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Once again, your anti-Catholicism should not influence how we write religious articles. Keep your atheism away from Wikipedia. Wikipedia is supposed to be neutral. This article is written in the same way we write other religious articles. And again, the consensus is against you! --SleeplessNight12 (talk) 00:16, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

The consensus is definitely against Contaldo80. I will add that given his history of repeatedly vandalizing Christian articles, we should watch him more closely. --SleeplessNight12 (talk) 03:05, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

SleeplessNight12 you are a new editor and you can be excused for a few things in the beginning, since you are learning the ropes, so to speak. But one thing we are not supposed to do is call other editors vandals. We must always assume good faith. Dr. K. 03:27, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Yup. I am new. Sorry if I did something wrong.SleeplessNight12 (talk) 04:08, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 21 September 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: No consensus. (non-admin closure) Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:58, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

---

Helena (empress) → Helena of Constantinople – its a More Simple Name, its a More Common Name and a Better Name. Pseudo-Dionysius the areopagite (talk) 20:34, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

• Is there any evidence that the proposed name is the common name or is there solid evidence to support that it is better than the current name?--67.68.29.177 (talk) 02:52, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
• I don't see any evidence that it's in common use; I wasn't aware of it until I saw this discussion. Admittedly I haven't read up on the subject, but skimming over the article, it sounds like it's only used in limited contexts. The usual goal of article naming policies is to place articles where people are most likely to look for them, and in ways that distinguish their subjects from other persons. The current title seems like a better article name; speaking just for myself I knew who this article was probably about because of the title, but if it had been at the proposed title I wouldn't have been sure, because as the section of the article that mentions it says, there are other saints by the same name. Whether the proposed title is "simpler" depends on your point of view; I understand and agree with the general proposition that parenthetical disambiguation isn't pretty, but sometimes it's the best method of distinguishing between articles. I wouldn't have said it was "more common", since this is the first I'm hearing of it, but you'll have a hard time proving that it is since all other search terms are likely to bring up hits for other persons and places; the current title is clear and unambiguous, but it's not likely to occur as a phrase in books or scholarly articles, so you'd be doing an apples to elephants comparison. And that it's "better" is simply one person's opinion. You may like it, but unless an awful lot of people agree with you enough to use it instead of referring to the subject in other ways, it's less likely to tell people what the subject of this article is. You'll need to address these concerns in order to justify an article move. P Aculeius (talk) 13:53, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
• I doubt it is more common. Besides, Helena died before Constantinople was founded! Walrasiad (talk) 06:02, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Proposal to rename page

Any reason why we can't call this article by her actual name - Flavia Iulia Helena Augusta? Of course re-directing searches such as Saint Helena or Empress Helena? I guess people will respond by arguing that when references to her are made in English history books she generally is not referred to with her proper name - but I can't help thinking that an article about a person should use the name of that person, even if it's not widely used. Contaldo80 (talk) 23:21, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

@Contaldo80: Flavia Iulia Helena Augusta would be a perfectly sensible article title.-- Toddy1 (talk) 22:09, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 25 October 2020

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Moved to Helena, mother of Constantine I, per general consensus that a move is warranted, and points made in the discussion for this title presenting the least ambiguous best match for sources and consistency with precedents within Wikipedia. BD2412 T 03:17, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Helena (empress) → Helena (mother of Constantine) – Avis11 (talk) 14:24, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

The rationale is as follows:

1. Sources (cited in a comment down below) overwhelmingly refer to her as "mother of Constantine" and almost never as "empress".
2. Constantius Chlorus divorced her before he became emperor, so she was never an empress. Mother of Constantine is what she's known for.
3. There were other empresses named Helena (outlined below).

Avis11 (talk) 00:48, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. She was an Augusta. Dimadick (talk) 15:35, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

An Augusta isn't a Roman empress (which in turn isn't even properly a thing). WP specifically distinguishes the two (here and here), and there's no reason to make the association. Avis11 (talk) 15:46, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

• Support per nom.--Ortizesp (talk) 13:04, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
• Comment: Roman empresses certainly are a "thing". It's how we translate "Augusta". The meaning is not limited to, "reigning female ruler of an empire" or "wife of an emperor"—historians use the word for any woman designated "Augusta" by a Roman emperor, whether wife or mother, with the one constant being that none of them ever ruled. So the primary basis of the nomination is incorrect. That said, there are four plausible titles: "Helena (empress)", "Helena (Roman empress)", "Helena (mother of Constantine)", and "Saint Helena". A previous discussion rejected the last title, although arguably she would be primary for it, due to the question of whether the posthumous awarding of sainthood, or her veneration by Christians is the best way to identify her. The first two titles are concise and clear—the second one the clearest, although I don't recall any other empresses by the name, and if there were, she would still be primary for the first—while the third one is clear but longer, and says more about her relationship to Constantine than the fact that she was a Roman empress, and one of the more noteworthy ones at that. I'm undecided about the best title, but from my perspective the article is fine where it is. P Aculeius (talk) 13:39, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment "although I don't recall any other empresses by the name" There is her granddaughter, Helena (wife of Julian). There are also Helena Lekapene, Helena, daughter of Alypius, Elena Asenina of Bulgaria, Helena Kantakouzene, and Helena Dragaš who were empresses consort of Byzantine emperors. A total of 7 Empresses Helena. Dimadick (talk) 12:21, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

@P Aculeius: what's your response to this? Avis11 (talk) 01:18, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Not sure what makes my response so critical here. I never claimed to be an expert on the topic—I responded to the move proposal because it affects an important article in CGR, and it seemed to be a simple matter of applying common sense. Apparently there are other empresses by the name—although probably none of them as significant as this one, and all of them either have natural disambiguation or some other form of disambiguation in their article titles. I think it still comes down to three reasonable choices: "Helena (empress)" is the simplest, but might also be a suitable title for a disambiguation page given the other articles. This option depends on how much more likely we think readers are to be looking for her than for any of the others. My guess is that it would be fine—but I'm not strongly opposed to making this title a disambiguation page, given the above. "Helena (Roman empress)" would be much less ambiguous, with perhaps one other person who could possibly be confused with her—but probably wouldn't be. A hatnote would be sufficient to distinguish the wife of Julian. "Helena (mother of Constantine)" is a viable option, although I think the least preferable of the three, since she's a notable historical figure, not merely the mother of one. But I don't think that's an absolute bar—just a reason why it's less desirable IMO. For what it's worth, I'm leaning toward "Helena (Roman empress)". P Aculeius (talk) 03:32, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

• Comment Please keep in mind that it doesn't really matter what any of us thinks is the best title; what matters is what she is most commonly called in English sources. Only if there is a no clear usage can we start picking between options. From what I've seen, Empress Helena (regardless of how correct it is) seems to be common English usage. Jeppiz (talk) 18:25, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Looking at the sources currently used in the article:

• T.D. Barnes, New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine (Harvard UP, 1982): Helena distinguished in both text and index as 'mother of Constantine'.
• T.G. Elliott, Christianity of Constantine the Great (1996): 'mother of Constantine'.
• E.D. Hunt, Holy Land Pilgrimage in the Later Roman Empire: A.D. 312–460 (1982): 'mother of Constantine'.
• Lenski, Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine (2013): repeatedly defines her as 'mother of Constantine'.
• Cyril Mango. "The Empress Helena, Helenopolis, Pylae.", Travaux et Mémoires: 'empress'.
• C. Odahl, Constantine and the Christian Empire (2004): defined in index as 'mother of Constantine'.
• H. Pohlsander, The Emperor Constantine (2004): 'mother of Constantine'.

Looking at other sources:

• Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium vol. 2: defines Helena an 'augusta' and 'saint'.
• Cambridge Ancient History vol. 10, index: defines Helena as 'mother of Constantine'.
• Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity: Helena introduced as 'empress'.
• Helena Augusta (Brill, 1992): in this standard biography of Helena, she is introduced in both the subtitle and first page as 'mother of Constantine'.
• Jacob Burckhardt, The Age of Constantine the Great: 'mother of Constantine'.
• Encyclopedia Britannica: both forms

It seems to me the primary way of referring to her is 'mother of Constantine'. Avis11 (talk) 20:22, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

• Move to Empress Helena for natural disambiguation. Interstellarity (talk) 11:06, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
• Support, though it could be "Helena, mother of Constantine" (without parentheses) on the example of Mary, mother of Jesus. After all, they were considered a new divine couple in the series: Adam and Eve, Jesus and Mary, Constantine and Helena. She was most definitely an empress though, like her daughter-in-law and one of her granddaughters (at least). GPinkerton (talk) 22:24, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment: that said, we have to assume this Helena is more significant than the other Helena Augusta, mother of Constantine Augustus. Constantinople began and ended with "Constantine, son of Helena" ... GPinkerton (talk) 00:48, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

  Yes, good calling; 'mother of Constantine I' should suffice already. Avis11 (talk) 03:11, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

  On the other hand, Constantine's Helena has no surname, so 'mother of Constantine' is already enough. Avis11 (talk) 14:11, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

"Divine couple"? Who considers any of the names checked above to be divine apart from Jesus? It's all just Flying Spaghetti Monster stuff to you, isn't it @GPinkerton: ? Laurel Lodged (talk) 14:40, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

For a start, the Romans themselves. Both Constantine and Helena were officially deified. GPinkerton (talk) 17:28, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

• Object on two grounds. (1) It is a sexist article title. (2) It is non-specific. It is sexist because it defines someone who was a person in her own right (Saint Helena of Constantinople) in terms of the man she was a mother of. I had thought that Wikipedia was meant to be taking action against sexism. The proposed title is nonspecific because there were many notable people called Constantine, so you have to define which one is meant - one solution to that would be Helena (mother of Constantine I), but that is still a sexist way to define her.-- Toddy1 (talk) 22:04, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Don't be silly. Wikipedia has articles of both men and women defined by family relationship with another (Gaius Octavius (father of Augustus), Josephus (grandfather of Flavius Josephus)). Practically all the sources call her primarily 'mother of Constantine'; there are other 7 empresses Helena, and no other Helena mother of Constantine. There are zero sources which call her "Helena of Constantinople". "Sexism" (lol) is a dismally bad argument against these points, which have already been raised and you failed to address. Avis11 (talk) 00:32, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

I have to agree with Avis here. It's not sexist to use someone's relationship to another historical figure as article disambiguation. It would be if we only did it for persons of one sex, although it could be equally applied to both. But that's clearly not the case here. I would prefer another form of disambiguation, but there's nothing wrong with "mother of Constantine", if a consensus determines that it's the best way to distinguish this article from others. P Aculeius (talk) 03:32, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Avis is mistaken in his/her claims that there was no other Helena mother of Constantine, and that there were zero sources which call her "Helena of Constantinople". GPinkerton pointed out on 6 November that Helena Dragaš was the empress consort of Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaiologos and mother of emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos. A search on Google Books shows that "Saint Helena of Constantinople" is a common name for her.-- Toddy1 (talk) 03:48, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

@Toddy1: I have already addressed the problem of Helena Dragas above. She has a surname, our current Helena does not ('Flavia Julia' was only acquired later, and is just a sort of token name indicating status and Roman citizenship). Helena (mother of Constantine I) may still be a good or the best option. Your google search for "Saint Helena of Constantinople" gives only 3 results, and none of these seem reliable sources. None of the sources I provided above seem to use this appellation. A google search for "Helena mother of Constantine" returns many, many more results. The same happens with a google scholar search for the same term. Avis11 (talk) 13:13, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

We also have Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (husband of Claudia Antonia), although he could possibly be the only example on Wikipedia of a man defined that way. PatGallacher (talk) 14:51, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

I think there are a few more, plus loads of redirects like Richard Cohen, husband of Paula Zahn. Then there's Lucius Annius Vinicianus (son-in-law of Cn. Domitius Corbulo), and perhaps more relevant, Marcus Ulpius Trajanus (father of Trajan). Johnbod (talk) 15:01, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

• Support Helena, mother of Constantine I. As for the sexist idea, see Maya (mother of the Buddha), Mary, mother of Jesus, Mary, Mother of God, Joseph, husband of Mary, mother of Jesus, Gunnhild, Mother of Kings, Aminah, the Mother of Mohammed, Mary, mother of James, Mary, the mother of James, Imran (father of Mary). There are many "son of" (a woman) and "daughter of" (a man) titles, as well. I think it's fine to disambiguate one gender with a related person of another gender, since we do the same with same-sex disambiguation such as Joseph (father of Jesus). No discrimination detected. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 11:39, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Relics and Wikipedia

Among them are items believed to be part of Jesus Christ's tunic, pieces of the holy cross, and pieces of the rope with which Jesus was tied on the Cross.

So that's scientific consensus today ("believed to be")? And no sourcing. Good work.94.191.152.206 (talk) 11:58, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Helena's supposed ancient greek origins

Since the sources that claim that Helena was Greek are only some insignificant in-line references about her, and considering that the author Drijvers who wrote an important work about her clearly states that her origins are unknown, I find it misleading to claim that she was of Greek origin. Ahmet Q. (talk) 22:43, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Apart from the fact that multiple sources claim that she had Greek origins e.g. Phelan and Stanton etc., what does ancient Greek origins mean? Should we create an article change the wiki link to Albanian individuals to "Medieval Albania"? Please use some common sense... There is an article that covers Greeks from all eras, just in case you did not notice... Othon I (talk) 22:54, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

"Helena (empress)" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Helena (empress) and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 October 16#Helena (empress) until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. ★Trekker (talk) 23:07, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

"Empress Helena" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Empress Helena and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 October 17#Empress Helena until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Regards, SONIC⁶⁷⁸ 00:01, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Aelena as name variant

Could someone with more knowledge in language than me please help out with the explanation for the variant name Aelena that has been found at times. These sources 1, 2, 3 discuss it but I don't really understand what they're talking about. ★Trekker (talk) 09:42, 10 February 2023 (UTC)