Constantine, Nicaea, and Helen sent to seek the life-giving Cross

Invention of the Cross (epitome of the earlier little book).

A historical encomium of Alexander the Monk, the historiographer, concerning the finding of the precious and life-giving Cross.

At that time the bishop of Aelia was Macarius, true to his name, who had succeeded Hermon. And the Great Constantine, having become sole ruler, transferred all his care to divine things. He was rebuilding the churches, since he was ambitious in spending freely from the public treasury, in money, expenses, and every kind of precious treasure.

And first he wrote a law that the temples of the idols be handed over to those consecrated to Christ, and that those still practicing idolatry be punished with capital penalties. Second, he wrote a law that only orthodox Christians serve in the army, and that these govern the nations and the camps. Third, he wrote a law that two Paschal weeks be kept free from public business — one before and one after. And thereafter there was deep peace and joy in the whole inhabited world, all the nations day by day running to the faith, being baptized, and with their own hands crushing their ancestral gods.

But these things were not bearable to the destructive demon; again he plotted within himself how he might cut off so great a rejoicing of human beings. He was no longer able to persuade people to deify the creation, for his deceit had been exposed. But he tried to persuade the unstable to rank the Creator with the creatures. And again there was no small disturbance in the churches of God, as a certain Arius of Alexandria went up and down and troubled the inhabited world. A few bishops in number were carried away with him, of whom the first was Eusebius of Nicomedia, and Eusebius son of Pamphilus, and others with them.

Seeing the great contentiousness, the Great Constantine was grieved in soul; and first he tried, through hortatory letters to both sides, to quench the strife. But when he saw the evil becoming incurable, he ordered an ecumenical synod to be held in the city of the Nicaeans, and bishops came together to the number of three hundred and eighteen. Of these the greater part were confessors, bearing the marks of Jesus in the body. And with them also was the all-famed Constantine; and when the matter was set in motion, they put forth a written exposition of the faith, the one now proclaimed throughout every church of the orthodox. But those around Arius and Eusebius of Nicomedia who persisted in the bad doctrine they denounced, and they were banished, and others were ordained in their place. And the emperor, having honored the bishops and embraced them, dismissed them in peace to their own dioceses, rejoicing at the concord of the churches.

He also charged Macarius, the bishop of Aelia, who was present at the synod and fought for the apostolic doctrines, to seek out the life-giving Cross and the God-receiving tomb and all the holy places; and he likewise urged the other bishops to ask, if each saw anything toward the completion of his own church. It was the nineteenth year of his reign when the synod took place at Nicaea.

After these things the emperor sent his own mother Helen — praiseworthy and God-loving — to Jerusalem, with letters and an abundance of money, to Macarius, true to his name, bishop of Aelia, for the search of the life-giving wood of the glorious Cross and for the building of the holy places; for the empress herself had asked this, saying she had seen a certain divine vision commanding her to reach Jerusalem and bring to light the holy places that had been heaped over by the winds and had become unseen for so long a time.

When the bishop learned that the empress had arrived, gathering the bishops of the province he met her with due honor. And at once she urged the bishops to make the search