Psalm 70:18
When Helena's son Constantine came to power in AD 308, she was given a place of honor and influence in the Empire with the title of 'Augusta.' When Constantine obtained a military victory after a miraculous vision which included a cross in the sky, Helena investigated and converted to Christianity. She was in her sixties.
She became devout and active disciple, financially helping the poor, bestowing gifts on churches and having new churches built in various locations of the Empire.
Helena made her greatest contribution to the Church very late in life in her trip to the Holy Land, where she found and honored the places where the Lord Jesus had lived and ministered. She had churches built at the Grotto of the Nativity and the on the Mount of the Ascension.
Her greatest triumph was the finding of the True Cross on which Christ died, which miraculously brought to life a corpse passed under its shadow. Her efforts later resulted in the discovery of the nails used to hold Christ on the Cross, the hay which filled the manger in which the baby Jesus lay, and bodies of the three Magi.
Helena died with her son, the Emperor, at her bedside in AD 330.
She (his mother) became under his (Constantine's) influence such a devout servant of God, that one might believe her to have been from her very childhood a disciple of the Redeemer of mankind.
Eusebius
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