01x23 - The Mother of Archaeology

[bunniefuu]

[music]

I'm going on an adventure.

There's only one way to figure it all out.

Unzip the archeology. Make it naked.

[music]

[SIMCHA] Saint Helena.

One of the most influential woman in history.

In the early th century,

she became a Christian before it was the fashion.

Her son followed his mama's lead.

And her son was none other than Constantine the Great,

Emperor of Rome. Soon,

Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire.

In her s, Helena set out for the land of the Bible,

single-handedly inventing the senior's tour...

...of the Christian Holy sites.

She decided where the most important events...

...in Jesus' life happened.

She built churches marking the birthplace of Jesus...

...and John the Baptist.

She found Joseph's carpentry shop,

the crown of thorns, and the crucifixion cross,

nails and all.

To this day, every year,

millions of pilgrims follow in the footsteps of Helena.

But was she a competent archaeologist?

Or was she just making it up as she went along?

To find out,

I'm going to take a look at some of her best work,

starting with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

This year old Church,

A maze of chapels, tombs, and passages,

is the holiest site in Christianity.

Legend says Helena built it.

She claimed it was the site of Jesus' crucifixion,

resurrection, and tomb,

now marked by a church within a church.

Helena said this is where Jesus was buried.

And, actually, if you just walk by over here,

you'll see that there is some kind of structure.

This seems to be I don't know, some kind of family tomb.

You can see the architecture.

There were tombs here.

And yet, people were washed here.

People were buried here. Families mourned here.

There's a whole network here.

Is this the tomb that the Gospels identify as the place...

...where Jesus was laid to rest for three days,

before the Gospels say that Jesus was resurrected?

It was a tomb. We can see that it was a tomb.

Was this the tomb of Jesus?

Well, according to Helena it was.

And suddenly this tomb, this modest family tomb,

turned into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Over the archaeology,

you have layers of architecture,

layers of face and an entire edifice of religion, right here.

[SIMCAH] I asked Father Leslie Hoppe, a Franciscan Monk,

about Helena's contribution to this Holy site.

This Church of the Holy Sepulchre,

what's the meaning of this church for Christendom?

Well, it houses the tomb of Jesus Christ,

plus it also houses the Rock of Golgotha,

where Jesus was crucified.

When you say it's the tomb of Jesus...

...that means you basically believe Helena.

Well the tradition regarding the identification...

...of this site as the place of Jesus' tomb...

...was a tradition kept by the local Christian community...

...of Jerusalem long before Helena came.

But when she shows up and says, you know,

let's build a church here,

that's hundreds of years after the fact, right?

Right.

But what was her involvement here?

Well that's the question.

[SIMCHA] Is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre...

...really built over the tomb of Jesus?

And if it was, was it really Helena who built it?

Before I can answer this, I need to know:

Who was this sizzling senior,

the patron saint of divorcees, treasure-hunters...

...and archaeologists?

I got the lowdown on Helena from Annette Yoshiko Reed,

professor at McMaster University.

Helena was the mother of Constantine.

She came from extremely humble origins.

An innkeeper or she may have been even a prost*tute.

Or a Madame, running a brothel.

Yeah, something to that effect, innkeeper in that sense.

The old innkeeper.

I think inns in those days were a little bit different.

Whatever she was she definitely...

...came from very humble origins.

She married Constantine's father...

...who also came from humble origins.

He was the son of a goat-herd.

So Goat-Herd married a Madame...

...and together they had an emperor.

Yes they were very common people.

Around the time that Constantine was twenty,

Constantius spurned Helena and abandoned her.

Got himself a trophy wife.

Oh he got himself actually more than a trophy wife.

The person who he married in her place...

...was the daughter of the Augustus,

the main emperor at the time.

So he married very, very far up.

[SIMCHA] Constantine's father becomes Emperor...

...but not for long.

He dies in bed one year later,

leaving the crown to Constantine.

At the time, Rome is Pagan.

Christians are being fed to the lions.

Legend says that in ,

Constantine is leading his army into battle...

...when this happens:

He sees a cross in the sky...

...and knows he must fight in the name of Jesus.

He wins.

It appears his mother had the right idea.

Within a century,

Christianity will become the official religion of the Empire.

It will strengthen and spread for the next thousand years,

unstoppable until the Moslems gain control of Jerusalem...

...in the th century.

At that time, the key to the Holy Sepulchre...

...is taken from the Christians...

...and given to a Moslem family for safekeeping.

For more than years,

Wajeeh Nuseibeh's ancestors have held the key...

...to the Church's only door.

I'm the doorkeeper and recorder of the church.

Doorkeepers of this church.

Before that my father. Now I am, later maybe then my son.

[SIMCHA] Deep inside the Holy Sepulchre,

there's another, less famous church.

St. Helena's Chapel, where Helena is said...

...to have discovered the true cross.

It is just below the site of the Crucifixion,

also known as Calvary.

And this is under Calvary.

This is the bottom of the hill.

You see the hill? The original hill.

The cross was discovered right here.

The cross was discovered right here?

Right here by Constantine Helene.

So this is called The Church of the Cross,

or the Church of Saint Helena.

So she found the cross where?

Right here.

This is the place where she discovered the cross.

[SIMCHA] If Helena was right,

she'd just achieved...

...one of the greatest archaeological feats...

...of all time.

But she didn't rest on her Roman laurels.

Next, she builds in Bethlehem.

[SIMCHA] In AD,

Constantine becomes Emperor of Rome.

He makes his mother, Helena Empress,

but she shocks Rome...

...by adopting a new illegal religion.

He has two choices:

he can feed her to the lions,

or make Christianity legal.

Cut to AD.

Christianity has become...

...Constantine's favourite pastime.

He builds St. Peter's.

He heads up the first Official Christian Council.

And he sends his mama on an all-expenses-paid trip...

...to the Holy Land to build churches in his name.

I'm standing in front of the Church of the Nativity...

...in Bethlehem.

This is the traditional place...

...were Jesus was supposed to be born in a manger.

This is where Helena came in .

Let me see here.

I happen to just have a handy tourist brochure.

thank you very much.

She came here in right?

Nice to meet you. What's your name?

Midal.

Midal, are you a tour guide here?

Yes.

So what's the story with this church?

What do you mean the story?

You're looking at the Church of the Nativity.

And this is the traditional place...

...where Jesus was born right?

It's not traditional

this is the place where all denominations...

...decide this is the place.

[SIMCHA] Helena heads to Bethlehem...

...to build a church marking the very spot...

...where Jesus was born.

Funnily enough, there's already a shrine here.

A Pagan Temple.

Christians believe the pagans built the temple...

...to cover up the Holy site.

Others believe Helena wanted to...

...turn a Pagan site into a Christian one.

Whatever the answer,

Helena knocks down the Pagan Temple...

...and builds a church for Jesus.

She even identifies the specific place of the miracle birth.

This is the traditional place of Jesus' birth,

right over there. The star marks the spot.

This is where the virgin birth is supposed to have taken place.

There's a Helena mosaic there,

dating back to the fourth century and if you notice,

this whole place has a shape of a cross.

There's two entrances, this is the head,

where Jesus is supposed to have been born...

...and then it goes right down, like that,

in the shape of a cross.

We'll let the faithful pass here.

Let's get out of these good peoples way.

[SIMCHA] , years later, away from the tourists,

the original mosaic floor of the church Helena built...

...is hidden under this trap door.

But that won't stop the Naked Archaeologist.

Well look at this, there's no mosaic here,

so I can go here.

This is supposedly the original mosaic.

So we're talking Helena's time.

We're talking sixteen hundred years old.

You can see it's about three or four feet...

...under the present floor.

Gorgeous mosaic. Isn't it beautiful? Okay.

[SIMCHA] In the th century...

...Helena is the answer to the Christians' prayers.

Just years earlier, they were forced to worship in secret.

Now they have a Church...

...the size of heaven and money to burn.

This is just the beginning.

Next, Helena embarks on a mission...

...to mark all the Holy places with churches.

She even finds the bones of the Three Magi,

the thorns from Jesus' crown,

and the True Cross.

What's her secret? Flexibility.

When archaeology fails,

she switches to miracles, visions, and t*rture.

So one of the interesting ways that Helena,

before she became Saint Helena,

used to find out where the True Cross was,

was to throw this learned Jew,

a person such as myself, into this well.

And then after seven days in this well,

I wouldn't have lasted seven days,

he finally came up with a theory...

...of where the true cross really was.

And then she let him climb out.

Whoa! [laughs] Out of the well.

[laughs] No wonder he confessed!

I would have [laughs]

I would have pointed at any tree just to get out of that.

Look at that. Ancient well.

Deep, miserable, full of bacteria.

Why did I go in there?

Archaeological ballet.

[SIMCHA] Torturing Jews doesn't sound...

...like very saintly behaviour to me.

I asked Annette Reed to tell me more...

...about Helena's research techniques.

In some traditions...

...she brings all of the Jews in the city together,

finds the most learned of them,

and tortures them in order to find out where the place is.

Because she knows there's memory there.

So this holy woman gathers the Rabbis...

...and tortures them to get information?

So that's one version of the story

That's one form of archaeology...

...I'm glad has been abandoned.

Yes. In another version of the legend,

it's because of divine inspiration...

...that she's able to tell where the various spots are.

Divine inspiration's nicer than t*rture.

Yes.

[SIMCHA] The stories go on to say...

...that Helena finds three crosses.

To find out which one belonged to Jesus,

she needs a miracle.

The one that heals a sick woman,

she declares the True Cross.

Helena orders the church built.

Holy Sepulchre is born. As for the cross-

She split it up.

One part was in Jerusalem,

one part was in Rome,

and one part was in Constantinople.

So she broke the True Cross?

Yes. This was a very common thing to do...

...with relics during this time.

That's like an archaeologist today...

...wanting to give to different museums.

Yes, there you go.

I want to take this jar and break it.

Each piece is as powerful as the whole...

...in terms of being a witness.

There's a part in Jerusalem, a part in Rome,

and a part in her son's new capital Constantinople.

A triangle-

Holy triangle?

-to the most important places...

...in within what is becoming a Christian Roman Empire.

[SIMCHA] In Jerusalem,

the relic of the True Cross was kept...

...in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Over years later, I'll get a chance to see it

[SIMCHA] Constantine the Great, Emperor of Rome.

In he sent his mother to the Holy Land.

There, she is said to have built many churches,

including the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

It's here that Helena reportedly found the True Cross,

and where now, , years later,

a sliver is still kept under lock and key.

Father Theophilus the Greek Orthodox Patriarch...

...has agreed to show it to me.

Hi.

Hi. So do you have a piece of the True Cross?

That's right. Right now, give me a second.

Oh wow. That's some key.

Yeah, that's right.

It's very old. It's an old key.

They don't make keys like this anymore.

Well only for preservation...

...and for antiquity sometimes. Come in.

Here. This little- -The central part.

The small part, which is inserted in the bigger one.

This is from the original cross of Jesus Christ.

Are there any miracles associated with-

Of course. There are many, many miracles...

...and many personal stories about the Holy Cross.

We have the little service,

which is called the service for sanctification of the water,

and once the water is blessed,

it never decays.

It doesn't evaporate?

It doesn't evaporate. Doesn't decay.

And here also we have relics.

You mean bones.

They are bones...

...but they are relics together with skin.

For example there is the right hand of Mary Magdalene.

Yes, that's right.

There is a hand in there isn't it?

Yes, there is.

There's like a metal glove around it.

Yes but you can see the hole inside there.

I see a bone.

Look, the tongue here. Inside there are bones.

[SIMCHA] A skeptic might point out...

...that none of these sacred relics have been...

...scientifically tested.

No carbon-fourteen dating, no labs.

Add to that, there are enough slivers of the True Cross...

...to build a house,

and even Father Hoppe is suspicious

What about the whole story of finding the cross?

Well the earliest story that associates Helena...

...with the finding of the cross comes from about...

... years after the event.

Eusebius doesn't mention Helena, nor the cross.

It's only with the history written in the Gelasius in ..

...that you have the association of Helena...

...with the finding of the cross at this church.

So do you think she had something to do with it...

...or she just got kind of retroactive praise?

My own personal view is that I'm doubtful...

...that Helena had anything to do...

...with the finding of the cross here.

[SIMCHA] So who did find the True Cross?

And what, if anything, did Helena discover?

[SIMCHA] Helena's influence is still felt around the world.

For example, in Toronto,

I met with Father Coutu...

...at St. Helena's Roman Catholic Church.

To my amazement,

locked away in the most secret recesses of the church,

I discovered that here too there is a piece of True Cross!

Could you tell me a little bit about this statue here?

That's Saint Helen and she became a Christian...

....at the age of , converted.

Now, I understand that in this church...

...there are pieces of the cross.

So you actually have relics?

Yeah, we have one.

It has been here for a long time.

I don't know when it came in.

But I presume it was here...

...since when the church was started.

I could show you if you come in.

Yeah, sure.

This is the safe? -This is the safe.

You keep it locked most of the time?

Yes. Always.

This is a real safe.

When you said safe I thought one of those little things.

No this is a walk-in safe.

Thick walls for fire.

And that's this piece here.

So, this is-

A sliver in the middle.

That tiny, tiny, little sliver.

But the little sliver is in the shape...

...of a cross that's split.

There are two slivers.

That's right. That's right.

And that, according to the tradition,

came from the actual cross that Jesus was crucified on...

...and that St. Helena identified.

That's right.

Are we allowed to open this?

Yes.

Oh, I see. So, it's encased.

That's right. On the centre of the cross.

Is it more symbolic for you or do you...

...actually believe that this is a piece of the cross?

I just look at it and I am happy to think of Jesus.

I don't go no longer on the questions,

whether it is the True Cross or wasn't true cross.

It's irrelevant to you?

To me it is just helps me to focus.

Once I'm focusing on Jesus' life, that's it.

[SIMCHA] Whether or not Helena discovered...

...the True Cross,

she has helped tens of millions of people focus on Jesus.

She invented the idea of the Christian pilgrimage.

At Christmas,

The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem...

...is packed with pilgrims.

At Easter, it's The Holy Sepulchre Church in Jerusalem.

Christians believe these churches are here...

...because Helena said so.

Archaeology can't tell us much about her.

But there is someone who can.

An ancient eyewitness.

Helena's travelling companion to the Holy Land,

one-time Bishop, the historian Eusebius.

It's difficult to know from the earlier accounts...

...how much of this she actually did.

The earliest account is in Eusebius...

...and she doesn't mention the True Cross at all.

She has actually Constantine...

...and Bishop Makarios of Jerusalem...

...being responsible for the Holy Sepulchre.

According to Eusebius she isn't.

One of the things that I find kind of striking...

...is that within Eusebius' account...

...he makes this off-hand reference to Helena,

wanting to pray in the places of importance to Christ's life,

and wanting to walk in the footsteps of Christ.

This focus on the physical places of Jesus' life...

...and trying to unearth them.

That's Helena's stuff?

Yeah I think it is.

There had been some pilgrims...

...that had gone before but they were scholars.

They were curious for other reasons.

But after Helena goes and builds churches...

...and then also makes this attempt...

...to walk in the footsteps of Christ,

there were just streams of pilgrims who come.

It's the basis for the whole way...

...of thinking about the past...

...that modern archaeology in the Holy Land is based on.

She's actually the first to create...

...a bridge to the historical Jesus.

Yeah. She actually she is in a lot of ways.

Of this real concern that to be a Christian...

...is to walk in the footsteps of Christ in the physical sense.

So how important is she to Christianity?

Well, if you try to imagine what it was like...

...in the fourth century,

for the Empress to come to Palestine...

...and to kneel in Christian churches...

...that's a powerful statement.

So it does lend a kind of support of the imperial family

...to this new religion.

And if you compare situation that the church faced...

...at the beginning of the fourth century,

to the one it faced at the end of the fourth century,

it is a night and day difference.

At the beginning of the fourth century...

...the church was suffering persecution.

At the end of the fourth century...

...pilgrims are coming from all over the empire,

and I think Helena's contribution is very critical.

[SIMCHA] We may never know...

...if Helena found the actual Gospel sites.

For most, it's a matter of faith.

What we do know is that she practically invented...

...the idea of Christian Holy sites...

...and she helped make Christianity...

...the official religion of the Roman Empire.

So what became of Helena?

She d*ed in her son's arms in Constantinople,

destined to become a Christian relic in her own right.

In the ninth century,

her bones were moved to the Abbey of Hautvillers in France,

where Dom Perignon invented his famous bubbly beverage.