Hell Helena News Today

People were familiar with the horrors of roman crucifixion. >> the cross is an instrument of capital punishment. and its quite amazing. its one of the big stories of early christianity that the instrument of the execution and torture of jesus christ, over time, becomes the primary symbol of jesus christ. >> one of the key factors in the change is helenas pilgrimage to find the true cross. it changes the cross to something that actually becomes something tangible that people want to think about a...

>> she is likely to have left from rome. to reach jerusalem is almost 2000 miles over land. >> for an elderly lady, helena was in her 70s at this point, this journey is an enormous undertaking. >> it is so unbelievably far away. in the american context, if new york is rome, jerusalem is something like guam, or american samoa. >> but by all accounts, helena is a remarkable woman. >> we know only a couple of things about the empress helena. we know that she was christian, and we know that she was ...

True cross start appearing throughout the roman empire. >> our first evidence that fragments of the cross were being spread around the mediterranean is from the late 340s and 350s when we learn that people have taken pieces of the true cross over to the north african seaboard. >> if the helena tradition is correct, that would only have been 20 years or so since its first finding. that shows that physical particles of the true cross actually did spread out from jerusalem very early on. >> there m...

City she reclaimed. >> helena is the person that takes jerusalem from a sleepy capital and turns it into a place we are all looking to for a spiritual message. >> for centuries devoted pilgrims have come here to mark their fate with a symbol now recognized the world over. >> at the time of jesus, a cross was a very negative image. it was a place of brutal horrible execution and death. after constantine and helena it becomes a contract with the transcendent. >> without the story of the discovery ...

>> but the sight of christs passion is no more. jerusalem is now an outpost of the roman empire, renamed elia capataline. >> when helena entered the city of jerusalem, its likely to have been a shell of its former glorious self in the early first century a.d. >> you have to realize that ancient cities are absolutely chaotic. >> we can imagine that shes sort of overwhelmed by the tangible reality of life in the ancient world. it was full of sounds and noises, and it was dirty. >> jerusalem is now...

History, 300 years after the crucifixion of christ, helena, empress of rome, discovers the cross jesus died on. >> from the moment the cross is found, people become interested in having a piece of the wood itself because of its direct connection to the body of christ. >> legend says helena divides the cross into pieces. >> i imagine when helena broke up the cross, it was such a desire for her to take it with her, to be able to share this tangible representation of her savior, of her lord. >> som...

True cross. >> after her tour of the holy land, helena begins the long journey home. but did she do so, as legend says, with a piece of the cross that jesus died on. doctor george cozan heads in to date a relic to find out once and for all. its great when you see a hundred orders come in, a hundred orders come in, but then you realize ive got a hundred orders i have to ship out. shipstation streamlined that wh the order data, the weights of , everything is seamlessly put into shipstation, so whe...

Jerusalem is now a very different place. >> the question is how could helena find it? it really takes us back to the year 135 a.d. when the emperor hadrean, builds a pagan temple over the site and ends up marking for all posterity the place of his death. >> the year before helenas son, the emperor constantine, ordered the temple be torn down. >> it wasnt his policy to destroy all of them, but that temple was the very antithesis of what christians or christ was about. >> the account of what happe...

>> her discovery will be hacked into tiny pieces and traded around the globe. venerated by millions, ridiculed by others. >> i dont think there is a snowballs chance in hell helena discovered the true cross. >> modern science sets out to answer the question, is the cross a hoax or a relic of relics? >> the true cross is one of the greatest mysteries in christian history. we have the tools to solve it. ♪ ♪

Describes helenas role in the finding of the true cross. >> which ha len a personally with her own bare hands, removes some of the earth and uncovers three wooden crosses together. >> what she came across was the relic. one could only imagine the emotions that welled up inside of her. ♪ ♪ >> the reality is that we dont know precisely what happened in jerusalem. and my own personal belief is