Christian tradition credits Helena, mother of the Roman emperor Constantine, with discovering the True Cross, the cross on which Jesus was crucified, during a visit to Jerusalem traditionally dated to the 320s CE. According to the fuller versions of the tradition that developed over the following decades, Helena undertook excavations near the site of Golgotha, then covered by a pagan temple that Constantine's building program in Jerusalem cleared away, and located three crosses along with an inscription, with the true cross subsequently identified either through its inscription or, in some versions, through a miraculous healing that occurred when a sick person touched it.
The discovery, in the fuller tradition, led directly to the construction of major Christian buildings on the site, including what became the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and to the veneration of the cross as a physical relic, with portions subsequently divided and distributed to churches across the Christian world, a practice that continued for centuries and produced an extensive later tradition of cross relics venerated in numerous locations.
Helena's broader activity in Jerusalem, including the construction of churches at several sites associated with Jesus's life, is well attested in sources close to her own lifetime, giving the wider context of her pilgrimage a considerably firmer historical footing than the specific narrative of the cross's discovery, which developed in more detail somewhat later.