Helena: The Subversive Persona of an Ideal Christian Empress in Early Byzantium

Abstract

The present paper explores the ways in which the social memory of the mother of Constantine the Great was reconstructed, judged, and appreciated between the late fourth and ninth centuries, in an effort either to qualify or challenge commonly held perceptions of her. My evaluation of the symbolic significance that clergy and laity accorded to Helena broadens our understanding of the official position of empresses in the world of Byzantine politics: both empress and emperor mattered in terms of power, without suggesting that the former was of equal importance to the latter. The portrayals of Helena involve their own paradoxical and subversive qualities.

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