St. Nicholas, called “of Bari”
was Bishop of Myra (Fourth Century). The great veneration with which this saint
has been honored for many ages and the number of altars and churches which have
been everywhere dedicated in his memory are testimonials to his holiness and of
the glory which he enjoys with God.
He is said to have been born at
Patara in Lycia, a province of Asia Minor. Myra, the capital, not far from the
sea, was an episcopal see, and this church falling vacant, the holy Nicholas
was chosen bishop, and in that station became famous by his extraordinary piety
and zeal and many astonishing miracles. The Greek histories of his life agree
that he suffered imprisonment of the faith and made a glorious confession in
the latter part of the persecution raised by Dioletian, and that he was present
at the Council of Nicaea and there condemned Arianism, even going so far,
according to some accounts of the council, as to slap the heretic across the
face. The silence of other authors makes many justly suspect these
circumstances. He died at Myra, and was buried in his cathedral.
We are assured that from his
earliest days Nicholas would take nourishment only once on Wednesdays and
Fridays, and that in the evening according to the canons. “He was exceedingly
well brought up by his parents and trod piously in their footsteps. The child,
watched over by the church enlightened his mind and encouraged his thirst for
sincere and true religion”. His parents died when he was a young man, leaving
him well off and he determined to devote his inheritance to works of charity. An
opportunity soon arose.
A citizen of Patara had lost all
his money, and had moreover to support three daughters who could not find
husbands because of their poverty; so the wretched man was going to give them
over to prostitution. This came to the ears of Nicholas, who thereupon took a
bag of gold and, under cover of darkness threw it in at the open window of the
man’s house. Here was a dowry for the eldest girl and she was soon duly
married. At intervals Nicholas did the same for the second and third; at the
last time the father was on the watch, recognized his benefactor and
overwhelmed him with his gratitude. It would appear that the three purses
represented in pictures, came to be mistaken for the heads of three children
and so they gave rise to the absurdstory of the children, resuscitated by the
saint, who had been killed by an innkeeper and pickled in a brine-tub.
According to other traditions he
was not only there but so far forgot himself as to give the heresiarch Arius a
slap in the face. Whereupon the conciliar fathers deprived him of his episcopal
insignia and committed him to prison; but our Lord and His Mother appeared
there and restored to him both his liberty and his office. As against Arianism
so against paganism, St. Nicholas was tireless and took strong measures: among
other temples he destroyed was that of Artemis, the principal in the district,
and the evil spirits fled howling before him.
He was the guardian of his people
as well in temporal affairs. The governor Eustathius had taken a bribe to
condemn to death three innocent men. At the time fixed for their execution
Nicholas came to the place, stayed the hands of the executioner, and released
the prisoners. Then he turned to Eustathiujs and did not cease to reproach him
until he admitted his crime and expressed his penitence. There were present on
this ocfcasion three imperial officers who were on their way to duty in
Phrygia.
Later, when they were back again
in Constantinople, the jealousy of the prefect Ablavius caused them to be
imprisoned on false charges and an order for their death was procured from the
Emperor Constantine. When the officers heard this they remembered the example
they had witnessed of the powerful love of justice of the Bishop of Myra and
they prayed to God that through his merits and by his instrumentality then
might yet be saved. That night St. Nicholas appeared in a dream to Constatine,
and told him with threats to release the three innocent men, and Ablavius
experienced the same thing.
In the morning the Emporor and
the prefect compared notes, and the condemned men were sent for and questioned.
When he heard that they had called on the name of the Nicholas of Myra who had
appeared to him, Constatine set them free and sent them to the bishop with a
letter asking him not to threaten him any more but to pray for the peace of the
world. For long this was the most famous miracle of St. Nicholas, and at the
time of St. Methodius was the only thing generally known about him.
The accounts are unanimous that
St. Nicholas died and was buried in his episcopal city of Myra, and by the time
of Justinian there was a basilica built in his honor at Constantinople. An
anonymous Greek wrote in the tenth century that, “the West as well as the East
acclaims and glorifies him. Wherever there are people, in the country and the
town, in the villages, in the isles, in the furthest parts of the earth, his
name is revered and churches are built in his honor. Images of him are set up,
panegyrics preached and festivals celebrated.
All Christians, young and old,
men and women, boys and girls, reverence his memory and call upon his
protection. And his favors, which know no limit of time and continue from age
to age, are poured out over all the earth; the Scythians know them, as do the
Indians and the barbarians, the Africans as well as the Italians.” When Myra
and its great shrine finally passed into the hands of the Saracens, several
Italian cities saw this as an opportunity to acquire the relics of St. Nicholas
for themselves. There was great competition for them between Venice and Bari.
The last-named won, the relics were carried off under the noses of the lawful
Greek custodians and their Mohammedan masters, and on May 9, 1087 were safety
landed at Bari, a not inappropriate home seeing that Apulia in those days still
had large Greek colonies.
A new church was built to shelter
them and the Pope, Bd. Urban II, was present at their enshrining. Devotion to
St. Nicholas was known in the West long before his relics were brought to
Italy, but this happening naturally greatly increased his veneration among the
people, and miracles were as freely attributed to his intercession in Europe as
they had been in Asia. At Myra “the venerable body of the bishop, embalmed as
it was in the good ointments of virtue exuded a sweet smelling myrrh, which
kept it from corruption and proved a health giving remedy against sickness to
the glory o f him who had glorified Jesus Christ, our true God.” The
translation of the relics did not interrupt this phenomenon, and the “manna of
St. Nicholas” is said to flow to this day. It was one of the great attractions
which drew pilgrims to his tomb from all parts of Europe.
It is the image of St. Nicholas
more often than that of any other that is found on Byzantine seals; in the
later middle ages nearly four hundred churches were dedicated in his honor in
England alone; and he is said to have been represented by Christian artists
more frequently than any saint except our Lady. St. Nicholas is venerated as
the patron saint of several classes of people, especially, in the East, of
sailors and in the West of children.
The first of these patronage is
probably due to the legend that during his life time, he appeared to storm
tossed mariners who invoked his aid off the coast of Lycia and brought them
safely to port. Sailors in the Aegean and Ionian seas, following a common
Eastern custom, had their “star of St. Nicholas” and wished one another a good
voyage in the phrase “May St. Nicholas hold the tiller”.
The legend of the “three
children” gave rise to his patronage of children and various observances,
ecclesiastical and secular, connected there with; such were the boy bishop and
especially in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, the giving of presents
in his name at Christmas time. This custom in England is not a survival from
Catholic times. It was popularized in America by the Dutch Protestants of New
Amsterdam who had converted the “popish” saint into a Nordic magician (Santa
Claus = Sint Klaes = Saint Nicholas). The deliverance of the three imperial
officers naturally caused St. Nicholas to be invoked by and on behalf of
prisoners and captives, and many miracles of his intervention are recorded in
the middle ages.
Curiously enough the greatest
popularity of St. Nicholas is found neither in the eastern Mediterranean nor
north-western Europe, great as that was, but in Russia. With St. Andrew the
Apostle he is patron of the nation, and the Russian Orthodox Church even
observes the feast of his translation; so many Russian pilgrims came to Bari
before the revolution that their government supported a church, hospital and
hospice there. He is a patron saint also of Greece, Apulia, Sicily and Loraine,
and of many citiesand dioceses (including Galway) and churches innumerable.
At Rome the basilica of St.
Nicholas in the Jail of Tully (in Carcere) was founded between the end of the
sixth and the beginning of the seventh centuries. He is named in the
preparation of the Byzantine Mass
From: U Catholic site: http://ucatholic.com/saints/saint-nicholas/