Saint Helena is traditionally credited with finding the True Cross in Jerusalem during the fourth century.
Helena was the mother of Emperor Constantine the Great. According to Christian tradition, she traveled to the Holy Land during the reign of her son and supported the identification and preservation of sites associated with Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection.
The tradition says that workers excavating beneath a temple site in Jerusalem discovered three crosses. Helena’s party identified the cross of Jesus through a healing associated with it. Constantine and Helena then supported the construction of churches at important Christian locations, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The historical details of the discovery are preserved mainly in later Christian accounts, so the tradition should not be treated as an independently verified archaeological event. Helena is nevertheless one of the best-known Christian figures associated with the True Cross and with the development of pilgrimage to Jerusalem.