St. Helena Day in Spain

The municipality of Santa Elena, which is part of the province of Jaén in Andalusia celebrates its patron saint festivities on August 18, the feast of the saint who gave the town its name, although the name was officially given by the intendant Pablo de Olavide, director of the colonization project of Sierra Morena in the eighteenth century, was that of Aranda del Presidente to distinguish it from Aranda del Duero, a name that honored the then president of the Council of Castile and the government of Charles III, the Count of Aranda. This denomination did not prosper popularly, preserving the place that of the primitive hermitage that King Alfonso VIII of Castile ordered to build, after the battle of Navas de Tolosa in 1212, so that the cross of guide that had presided over his armies would be preserved in it. The name of this saint, mother of the emperor Constantine, was chosen because of the popular belief that it was to her that the remains of the cross where Jesus Christ died were found in the third century. Santa Elena has the peculiarity, unlike the rest of the New Towns, of not having the Immaculate Conception as its official patron saint, an invocation for which King Carlos III felt special predilection to the point of making it the Universal Patron Saint of Spain and its overseas dominions to the detriment of the apostle Santiago, initiating for this reason the archbishop of Santiago de Compostela a dispute with the king himself, which was resolved by naming Santiago patron of Spain in his reserve.