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I would like to note , that in the other article : http://en.wikipedia.org/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)
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)
I removed the following links:
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:
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 Coinproject has over 80% of all known types of coins which were struck in the name of Helena and several that are unpublished.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)
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)
Esnible ( talk) 02:27, 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)
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)
Wow! The statement above is the worst English I've come across on Wikipedia yet!!
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
I propose this article move to Helena (empress) as we do not automatically capitalize monarchical titles. Fæ ( talk) 08:45, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
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)
Honorifics are germane to the article per WP:COMMONNAME. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 13:50, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
"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. [1] "
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."
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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)
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)
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)
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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)
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)
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)
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)
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:
Avis11 ( talk) 00:48, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect
Empress Helena and has thus listed it
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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)
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I would like to note , that in the other article : http://en.wikipedia.org/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)
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)
I removed the following links:
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:
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)
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)
Esnible ( talk) 02:27, 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)
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)
Wow! The statement above is the worst English I've come across on Wikipedia yet!!
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
I propose this article move to Helena (empress) as we do not automatically capitalize monarchical titles. Fæ ( talk) 08:45, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
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)
Honorifics are germane to the article per WP:COMMONNAME. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 13:50, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
"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. [1] "
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."
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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)
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)
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)
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Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 22:52, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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:
Avis11 ( talk) 00:48, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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,
SONIC
678
00:01, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
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)