Constantine's parents were Emperor Constantius Florus and Empress Helena. Florus had more children by another wife, but by Helena there was only this Constantine. Constantine had three great battles when he became emperor: one against Maxentius, the tyrant in Rome, the second against the Scythians on the Danube, and the third against the Byzantines. Before the battle with Maxentius, when Constantine was in great anxiety and doubt about his success, a brilliant cross appeared to him in the sky during the day, all adorned with stars, and on the cross was written: conquer with this. The emperor, amazed, ordered a large cross to be forged, similar to the one that appeared to him, and to be carried before the army. By the power of the cross, he won a glorious victory over a numerically superior enemy. Maxentius drowned in the Tiber River. Immediately afterwards, Constantine issued the famous Edict of Milan in 313, to end the persecution of Christians. Having defeated the Byzantines, he built a magnificent capital city on the Bosphorus, which was from then on called Constantinople. But before that, Constantine fell seriously ill with leprosy. Priests and doctors advised him to bathe in the blood of slaughtered children as a cure. But he refused. Then the apostles Peter and Paul appeared to him and told him to seek out Bishop Sylvester, who would cure him of the terrible disease. The bishop taught him the Christian faith and baptized him, and the leprosy disappeared from the emperor's body. When a schism arose in the church because of the disturbing heretic Arius, the emperor convened the First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea in 325, where heresy was condemned and Orthodoxy was established. Saint Helena, the emperor's pious mother, was very zealous for the faith of Christ. She visited Jerusalem and found the Holy Cross of the Lord, and built the Church of the Resurrection on Golgotha ​​and many other churches throughout the Holy Land. At the age of eighty, this holy woman presented herself to the Lord in the year 327. And Emperor Constantine outlived his mother by ten years and reposed at the age of sixty-five in the city of Nicomedia. His body was buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople.

Venerable Helena of Decan.