Feast of Sts Constantine and Helen
Today the Eastern tradition (Catholic and Orthodox) honors Sts Constantine and Helen. While the West might have ignored St Constantine’s elevation to sainthood, Rome nonetheless acknowledges and accepts the East’s devotion to him.
So much has been said, and will continue to be said, about Constantine and his religious faith. I hold no doubts as to the sincerity of his faith. I do not think he was a cynical ruler using the Christian faith for political gains. If he were he could have done it so much better. He was deeply sorrowful for what the empire had done to the Christians, and worked to restore what it had taken from them in times past, something which would not have happened if he were only interested in using the Christian faith as a tool for political power.
More than anything else, the legends around Constantine which treat him as a power-mad ruler using a new, untried faith for his own gain comes out of the discredited legends surrounding the so-called Donation of Constantine and pagan anti-Christian polemical authors. Even though these legends have been dismissed, a biased interpretation of Constantine based upon them remains influential over Western Christian thought. If the black legend has hindered the English speaking world to properly understand Spanish history, so has Western abuse of Constantine affected a true understanding of the man and his mission in the world. To the East, he will always be St Constantine the Great, Friend of the Logos, and Equal to the Apostles. Yes, we know he was human, and he had many failings (like any saint); but we also recognize the way God used him like a new David, providing the way by which Christianity could finally find itself in the world and no longer be tempted by a spiritualistic, world-denying mentality. Of course, being in the world and involving ourselves in its structures has meant Christians are now facing different, and possibly even greater temptations, than those before Constantine; but that should not be used to dismiss his legacy and the important role Constantine has played in world history.
And so, with the rest of my Eastern tradition, I rejoice today in the feast of Sts Constantine and Helen and say:
O Lord, thy disciple Emperor Constantine, who saw in the sky the Sign of Thy Cross, accepted the call that came straight from Thee, as it happened to Paul, and not from any man. He built his capital and entrusted it to Thy care. Preserve our country in everlasting peace, through the intercession of the Mother of God, for Thou art the Lover of mankind.
Comments are closed.
I am grateful that Constantine is not recognized as a saint for the universal Church.
I’m pro-Constantine.
I have particular difficulty understanding the title of “Equal to the Apostles.” What does it even mean? In what sense was this Roman Emperor equal to those who were witnesses to Christ’s resurrection, both by the evidence of their eyes, by the word of their tongues, and (most of all) by the shedding of their blood? I have no trouble accepting Constantine’s conversion as a boon for Christianity. Despite later abuses and abuses by Constantine himself (didn’t he, after the council of Nicea, waffle somewhat in implementing its doctrine?), I believe that the Lord used his conversion for good, and I think that he was genuine in his conversion. But, I have to say that this title strikes my Western ears as offensive, and beg your pardon, Henry, if my confusion is itself offensive.
Matthew
The title, “Equal to the Apostles” must not be understood as a title of ecclesiastical authority but of honor, that someone who has it (and there are many) did something which had an outstanding effect in the spread of the Gospel (thus, those who helped convert entire nations were often given this title).
A list of some of the saints with this honor include:
Mary Magdalene, Thekla, Cyril and Methodius, Vladimir, and Patrick.
Matthew,
And I know the general Western approach to St Constantine, something which became normative in part as a reaction to the Donation of Constantine and a re-reading of Eusebius. So I also understand the general hesitance of the West to understand him, his motives, and why the East honors him as much as it does.
I think there are far more details to the story than most realize (for example, I really think Vatican II and Constantine’s desires for his empire had much in common, making Vatican II a development of Constantinian theology proper, and not the medieval political theory which people confuse as Constantinian). Sometime in the future I hope to post on it, but I am not sure when I will get to it. However, as an intersting aside, over a few posts, I am going to have a paper I wrote in 2003 put on the blog; it was a discussion and comparison of Constantine and Ashoka, and the kind of legends which developed around them. It will not answer the historical question, but I do think it will point out a few things of hagiography in general.
Henry, Thanks so much for the interesting response. I especially like the point in your post about Constantine as giving an answer for the world-denying tendancies in the early church. Given the excesses that happened at some points (the Donatists and Montanists come immediately to mind), that’s an idea I’ll have to keep in mind as I do my studies this summer.
God bless you as you continue your service to him!
Matthew
You are more than welcome. As you probably can tell, I am very “this worldly” in my theological approach. Of course, the reverse problem is indeed a problem, but I don’t think it really hit Constantine (Theodosius, on the other hand, I think is the one people should focus on).
I also think – like Ossius of Cordova — some of the anti-Constantine polemic as it developed in the West came in part from the Donatists, because he didn’t support them at the time of his conversion (due to Ossius’ advice). But that’s something I’ve not explored and only have as an intuition at this stage.
Does involvement in the world have to mean involvement with/integration into, the dominant political structures of the day (state and empire)?
Dorothy Day was very this-worldly. But she rejected working with the imperial state, or appealing to it to achieve any of her ends. Instead, she was this worldly while living in an alternative communal structure.
Of course I don’t think it’s an either/or option here. I am not necessarily denying Constantine’s importance. Just questioning the preciseness of your use of “this world.”
G. Alkon
I think the answer to your question is not simple; there are many personal missions, and for some of them include being involved in the political structures of the day — but how they are involved with them is the real question. The Church recognizes no one system as “it” but many possible systems, all needing grace beyond itself, and yet all having the human element. Society is to be transformed both inside out and outside in. People are needed in both, and with both, there are dangers (as with my point that the added element can end up being a greater temptation, for it easily imitates Prometheus).
Probably one of the best discussions on this, for me, was Solovyov’s Russia and the Universal Church which saw being in this world can be dirty but helps more, while out of this world tends to be quietist and individualistic. Christians need to live in the world, reform it from within, but also with those who live beyond pointing to the way of grace perfecting nature.
I am creating a lesson plan for our Sept 14th Sunday School class and would like to find a St Helen and Constantine story explaining how they found the cross Jesus died on and the story of why basil is so important in the Greek Orthodox religion. If you know of where this would be posted, I would greatly appreciate it!
Thank you
Jenny