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This article is about the fourth-century Christian saint. For the gift-bearing figure in modern folklore and popular culture, see Santa Claus. For other uses, see Saint Nicholas (disambiguation).
“Nicholas of Myra” redirects here. Not to be confused with Nicholas of Lyra.
Saint Nicholas of Myra[a] (traditionally 15 March 270 – 6 December 343),[3][4][b] also known as Nicholas of Bari, was an early Christian bishop of Greek descent from the maritime city of Myra in Asia Minor (Greek: Μύρα; modern-day Demre, Turkey) during the time of the Roman Empire.[7][8] Because of the many miracles attributed to his intercession, he is also known as Nicholas the Wonderworker.[c] Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, children, brewers, pawnbrokers, unmarried people, and students in various cities and countries around Europe. His reputation evolved among the pious, as was common for early Christian saints, and his legendary habit of secret gift-giving gave rise to the traditional model of Santa Claus (“Saint Nick”) through Sinterklaas.

Saint
Nicholas
Jaroslav Čermák (1831 – 1878) – Sv. Mikuláš.jpg
Full-length icon of Saint Nicholas by Jaroslav Čermák, showing him with a halo, dressed in clerical garb, and holding a book of the scriptures in his left hand while making the hand gesture for the sign of the cross with his right.
Defender of Orthodoxy, Wonderworker, Holy Hierarch, Bishop of Myra
Born
Traditionally 15 March 270[1]
Patara, Roman Empire
(modern-day Gelemiş, Kaş, Antalya, Turkey)
Died
Traditionally 6 December 343 (aged 73)
Myra, Roman Empire
(modern-day Demre, Antalya, Turkey)
Venerated in
All Christian denominations which venerate saints
Major shrine
Basilica di San Nicola, Bari, Italy
Feast
5/6 December in Western Christianity; 19 December in Eastern Christianity (main feast day – Saint Nicholas Day)
22 May [O.S. 9 May] (translation of relics)[2]
Attributes
Vested as a bishop. In Eastern Christianity, wearing an omophorion and holding a Gospel Book. Sometimes shown with Jesus Christ over one shoulder, holding a Gospel Book, and with the Theotokos over the other shoulder, holding an omophorion, holding three golden balls or coins
Patronage
Children, coopers, travelers, sailors, fishermen, merchants, broadcasters, the falsely accused, repentant thieves, brewers, pharmacists, archers, pawnbrokers, unmarried people, Prilep, Aberdeen, Galway, Russia, Greece, Hellenic Navy, Liverpool, Bari, Siggiewi, Moscow, Amsterdam, Lorraine, Royal School of Church Music and Duchy of Lorraine, students in various cities and countries around Europe, Russian Navy
Very little is known about the historical Saint Nicholas. The earliest accounts of his life were written centuries after his death and contain many legendary elaborations. He is said to have been born in the Greek seaport of Patara, Lycia in Asia Minor to wealthy Christian parents.[9] In one of the earliest attested and most famous incidents from his life, he is said to have rescued three girls from being forced into prostitution by dropping a sack of gold coins through the window of their house each night for three nights so their father could pay a dowry for each of them. Other early stories tell of him calming a storm at sea, saving three innocent soldiers from wrongful execution, and chopping down a tree possessed by a demon. In his youth, he is said to have made a pilgrimage to Egypt and Palestine. Shortly after his return, he became Bishop of Myra. He was later cast into prison during the persecution of Diocletian, but was released after the accession of Constantine. An early list makes him an attendee at the First Council of Nicaea in 325, but he is never mentioned in any writings by people who were at the council. Late, unsubstantiated legends claim that he was temporarily defrocked and imprisoned during the council for slapping the heretic Arius. Another famous late legend tells how he resurrected three children, who had been murdered and pickled in brine by a butcher planning to sell them as pork during a famine.

Fewer than 200 years after Nicholas’s death, the St. Nicholas Church was built in Myra under the orders of Theodosius II over the site of the church where he had served as bishop, and his remains were moved to a sarcophagus in that church. In 1087, while the Greek Christian inhabitants of the region were subjugated by the newly arrived Muslim Seljuk Turks, and soon after their church was declared to be in schism by the Catholic church, a group of merchants from the Italian city of Bari removed the major bones of Nicholas’s skeleton from his sarcophagus in the church without authorization and brought them to their hometown, where they are now enshrined in the Basilica di San Nicola. The remaining bone fragments from the sarcophagus were later removed by Venetian sailors and taken to Venice during the First Crusade.

Biographical sources
Edit

Very little at all is known about Saint Nicholas’s historical life.[10][11] Any writings Nicholas himself may have produced have been lost[12] and he is not mentioned by any contemporary chroniclers.[12] This is not surprising,[13] since Nicholas lived during a turbulent time in Roman history.[13] Furthermore, all written records were kept on papyrus or parchment, which were less durable than modern paper,[14] and texts needed to be periodically recopied by hand onto new material in order to be preserved.[14] The earliest mentions of Saint Nicholas indicate that, by the sixth century, his cult was already well-established.[15] Less than two hundred years after Saint Nicholas’s probable death, the Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II (ruled 401–450) ordered the building of the Church of Saint Nicholas in Myra, which thereby preserves an early mention of his name.[16] The Byzantine historian Procopius also mentions that the Emperor Justinian I (ruled 527–565) renovated churches in Constantinople dedicated to Saint Nicholas and Saint Priscus,[17][16] which may have originally been built as early as c. 490.[17]

Nicholas’s name also occurs as “Nicholas of Myra of Lycia” on the tenth line of a list of attendees at the Council of Nicaea recorded by the historian Theodoret in the Historiae Ecclesiasticae Tripartitae Epitome, written sometime between 510 and 515.[16][15] A single, offhand mention of Nicholas of Myra also occurs in the biography of another saint, Saint Nicholas of Sion,[11] who apparently took the name “Nicholas” to honor him.[11][18] The Life of Saint Nicholas of Sion, written around 250 years after Nicholas of Myra’s death, briefly mentions Nicholas of Sion visiting Nicholas’s tomb to pay homage to him.[11][18][15] According to Jeremy Seal, the fact that Nicholas had a tomb that could be visited serves as the almost solitary definitive proof that he was a real historical figure.[19][18]

In his treatise De statu animarum post mortem (written c. 583), the theologian Eustratius of Constantinople cites Saint Nicholas of Myra’s miracle of the three counts as evidence that souls may work independent from the body.[17] Eustratius credits a lost Life of Saint Nicholas as his source.[17] Nearly all the sources Eustratius references date from the late fourth century to early fifth century,[17] indicating the Life of Saint Nicholas to which he refers was probably written during this time period, shortly after Nicholas’s death.[17] The earliest complete account of Nicholas’s life that has survived to the present is a Life of Saint Nicholas, written in the early ninth century by Michael the Archimandrite (814–842), nearly 500 years after Nicholas’s probable death.[20]

Despite its extremely late date, Michael the Archimandrite’s Life of Saint Nicholas is believed to heavily rely on older written sources and oral traditions.[21][22] The identity and reliability of these sources, however, remains uncertain.[22] Catholic historian D. L. Cann and medievalist Charles W. Jones both consider Michael the Archimandrite’s Life the only account of Saint Nicholas that is likely to contain any historical truth.[20] Jona Lendering, a Dutch historian of classical antiquity, notes that Michael the Archimandrite’s Life does not contain a “conversion narrative”, which was unusual for saints’ lives of the period when it was written.[22] He therefore argues that it is possible Michael the Archimandrite may have been relying on a source written before conversion narratives became popular, which would be a positive indication of that source’s reliability.[22] He also notes, however, that many of the stories recounted by Michael the Archimandrite closely resemble stories told about the first-century AD Neopythagorean philosopher Apollonius of Tyana in the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, an eight-volume biography of him written in the early third century by the Greek writer Philostratus.[22] Christian storytellers were known to adapt older pagan legends and attribute them to Christian saints.[22] Because Apollonius’s hometown of Tyana was not far from Myra, Lendering contends that many popular stories about Apollonius may have become attached to Saint Nicholas.[22]

Life and legends
Edit

Family and background
Edit
Accounts of Saint Nicholas’s life agree on the essence of his story,[23] but modern historians disagree regarding how much of this story is actually rooted in historical fact.[23] Traditionally, Nicholas was born in the city of Patara (Lycia et Pamphylia), a port on the Mediterranean Sea,[9] in Asia Minor in the Roman Empire, to a wealthy family of Greek Christians.[23][24][25][26][27][9] According to some accounts, his parents were named Epiphanius (Ἐπιφάνιος, Epiphánios) and Johanna (Ἰωάννα, Iōánna),[28] but, according to others, they were named Theophanes (Θεοφάνης, Theophánēs) and Nonna (Νόννα, Nónna).[9] In some accounts, Nicholas’s uncle was the bishop of the city of Myra, also in Lycia.[29] Recognizing his nephew’s calling, Nicholas’s uncle ordained him as a priest.[29]

Generosity and travels
Edit

The dowry for the three virgins (Gentile da Fabriano, c. 1425, Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome)
After his parents died, Nicholas is said to have distributed their wealth to the poor.[22][29] In his most famous exploit,[30] which is first attested in Michael the Archimandrite’s Life of Saint Nicholas, Nicholas heard of a devout man who had once been wealthy but had lost all of his money due to the “plotting and envy of Satan.”[22][31] The man could not afford proper dowries for his three daughters.[31][22][29][d] This meant that they would remain unmarried and probably, in absence of any other possible employment, be forced to become prostitutes.[22][29][31] Hearing of the girls’ plight, Nicholas decided to help them, but, being too modest to help the family in public (or to save them the humiliation of accepting charity), he went to the house under the cover of night and threw a purse filled with gold coins through the window opening into the house.[22][29] The father immediately arranged a marriage for his first daughter, and after her wedding, Nicholas threw a second bag of gold through the same window late at night.[22][29][33]

According to Michael the Archimandrite’s account, after the second daughter was married, the father stayed awake for at least two “nights” and caught Saint Nicholas in the same act of charity toward the third daughter.[22][29][34] The father fell on his knees, thanking him, and Nicholas ordered him not to tell anyone about the gifts.[22][29][34] The scene of Nicholas’s secret gift-giving is one of the most popular scenes in Christian devotional art, appearing in icons and frescoes from across Europe.[35] Although depictions vary depending on time and place,[35] Nicholas is often shown wearing a cowl while the daughters are typically shown in bed, dressed in their nightclothes.[35] Many renderings contain a cypress tree or a cross-shaped cupola.[35]

The historicity of this incident is disputed.[22] Adam C. English argues for a historical kernel to the legend, noting the story’s early attestation as well as the fact that no similar stories were told about any other Christian saints.[36] Jona Lendering, who also argues for the story’s authenticity, notes that a similar story is told in Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius of Tyana, in which Apollonius gives money to an impoverished father,[22] but states that Michael the Archimandrite’s account is markedly different.[22] Philostratus does not mention the fate of the daughters and, in his story, Apollonius’s generosity is purely motivated out of sympathy for the father;[22] in Michael the Archimandrite’s account, however, Saint Nicholas is instead expressly stated to be motivated by a desire to save the daughters from being sold into prostitution.[22] He argues that this desire to help women is most characteristic of fourth-century Christianity, due to the prominent role women played in the early Christian movement,[22] rather than Greco-Roman paganism or the Christianity of Michael the Archimandrite’s time in the ninth century, by which point the position of women had drastically declined.[22]

In another story, Nicholas is said to have visited the Holy Land.[29] The ship he was on was nearly destroyed by a terrible storm,[29] but he rebuked the waves, causing the storm to subside.[29] Because of this miracle, Nicholas became venerated as the patron saint of sailors and travelers. [29]

Bishop of Myra
Edit

Saint Nicholas Saves Three Innocents from Death (1888) by Ilya Repin
After visiting the Holy Land, Nicholas returned to Myra.[29] The bishop of Myra, who had succeeded Nicholas’s uncle, had recently died[29] and the priests in the city had decided that the first priest to enter the church that morning would be made bishop.[29] Nicholas went to the church to pray[29] and was therefore proclaimed the new bishop.[23][29][37] He is said to have been imprisoned and tortured during the Great Persecution under the Emperor Diocletian (ruled 284–305),[38][39] but was released under the orders of the Emperor Constantine the Great (ruled 306–337).[15] This story sounds plausible, but is not attested in the earliest sources and is therefore unlikely to be historical.[40]

One of the earliest attested stories of Saint Nicholas is one in which he saves three innocent men from execution.[32][41] According to Michael the Archimandrite, three innocent men were condemned to death by the governor Eustathius. As they were about to be executed, Nicholas appeared, pushed the executioner’s sword to the ground, released them from their chains, and angrily chastised a juror who had accepted a bribe.[41] According to Jona Lendering, this story directly parallels an earlier story in Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius of Tyana, in which Apollonius prevents the execution of a man falsely condemned of banditry.[22] Michael the Archimandrite also tells another story in which the consul Ablabius accepted a bribe to put three famous generals to death, in spite of their actual innocence.[42] Saint Nicholas appeared to Constantine and Ablabius in dreams, informing Constantine of the truth and frightening Ablabius into releasing the generals, for fear of Hell.[42]

Later versions of the story are more elaborate, interweaving the two stories together.[32] According to one version, Emperor Constantine sent three of his most trusted generals, named Ursos, Nepotianos, and Herpylion, to put down a rebellion in Phrygia,[32] but a storm forced them to take refuge in Myra.[32] Unbeknownst to the generals, who were in the harbor, their soldiers further inland were fighting with local merchants and engaging in looting and destruction.[32] Nicholas confronted the generals for allowing their soldiers to misbehave[32] and the generals brought an end to the looting.[43] Immediately after the soldiers had returned to their ships, Nicholas heard word of the three innocent men about to be executed and the three generals aided him in stopping the execution.[44] Eustathius attempted to flee on his horse,[44] but Nicholas stopped his horse and chastised him for his corruption.[45] Eustathius, under the threat of being reported directly to the Emperor, repented of his corrupt ways.[46] Afterward, the generals succeeded in ending the rebellion and were promoted by Constantine to even higher status.[46] The generals’ enemies, however, slandered them to the consul Ablabius, telling him that they had not really put down the revolt, but instead encouraged their own soldiers to join it.[46] The generals’ enemies also bribed Ablabius and he had the three generals imprisoned.[46] Nicholas then made his dream appearances and the three generals were set free.[47]

Council of Nicaea
Edit

Detail of a late medieval Greek Orthodox fresco showing Saint Nicholas slapping Arius at the First Council of Nicaea, a famous incident whose historicity is disputed[48][22]
In 325, Nicholas is said to have attended the First Council of Nicaea,[15][22][49] where he is said to have been a staunch opponent of Arianism and devoted supporter of Trinitarianism,[50] and one of the bishops who signed the Nicene Creed.[51] Nicholas’s attendance at the Council of Nicaea is attested early by Theodore the Lector’s list of attendees, which records him as the 151st attendee.[15][16] However, he is conspicuously never mentioned by Athanasius of Alexandria, the foremost defender of Trinitarianism at the council, who knew all the notable bishops of the period,[52] nor is he mentioned by the historian Eusebius, who was also present at the council.[12] Adam C. English notes that lists of the attendees at Nicaea vary considerably, with shorter lists only including roughly 200 names, but longer lists including around 300.[36] Saint Nicholas’s name only appears on the longer lists, not the shorter ones.[36] Nicholas’s name appears on a total of three early lists, one of which, Theodore the Lector’s, is generally considered to be the most accurate.[22] According to Jona Lendering, there are two main possibilities:

Nicholas did not attend the Council of Nicaea, but someone at an early date was baffled that his name was not listed and so added him to the list.[22] Many scholars tend to favor this explanation.[53][48]
Nicholas did attend the Council of Nicaea, but, at an early date, someone decided to remove his name from the list, apparently deciding that it was better if no one remembered he had been there.[22]
A later legend, first attested in the fourteenth century, over 1,000 years after Nicholas’s death, holds that, during the Council of Nicaea, Nicholas lost his temper and slapped “a certain Arian” across the face.[48] On account of this, Constantine revoked Nicholas’s miter and pallium.[48] Steven D. Greydanus concludes that, because of the story’s late attestation, it “has no historical value.”[48] Jona Lendering defends the historicity of the incident, arguing that, because it was embarrassing and reflects poorly on Nicholas’s reputation, it is inexplicable why later hagiographers would have made it up.[22] Later versions of the legend embellish it,[48] making the heretic Arius himself[48][54] and having Nicholas punch him rather than merely slapping him with his open hand.[48] In these versions of the story, Nicholas is also imprisoned,[48][54] but Christ and the Virgin Mary appear to him in his cell.[48][54] He tells them he is imprisoned “for loving you”[48] and they free him from his chains and restore his vestments.[48][54] The scene of Nicholas slapping Arius is celebrated in Eastern Orthodox icons[48] and episodes of Saint Nicholas at Nicaea are shown in a series of paintings from the 1660s in the Basilica di San Nicola in Bari.[53]

Other reputed miracles
Edit

Illustration of Saint Nicholas resurrecting the three butchered children from the Grandes Heures d’Anne de Bretagne (created between 1503 and 1508)
One story tells how during a terrible famine, a malicious butcher lured three little children into his house, where he killed them, placing their remains in a barrel to cure, planning to sell them off as ham.[29][55] Nicholas, visiting the region to care for the hungry, saw through the butcher’s lies[29][56] and resurrected the pickled children by making the Sign of the Cross.[29][56] Jona Lendering states that the story is “without any historical value.”[40] Adam C. English notes that the story of the resurrection of the pickled children is a late medieval addition to the legendary biography of Saint Nicholas[36] and that it is not found in any of his earliest Lives.[36]

Though this story seems bizarre and horrifying to modern audiences,[56] it was tremendously popular throughout the late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, and widely beloved by ordinary folk.[56][29][40] It is depicted in stained glass windows, wood panel paintings, tapestries, and frescoes.[56] Eventually, the scene became so widely reproduced that, rather than showing the whole scene, artists began to merely depict Saint Nicholas with three naked children and a wooden barrel at his feet.[56] According to English, eventually, people who had forgotten or never learned the story began misinterpreting representations of it.[57] The fact that Saint Nicholas was shown with children led people to conclude he was the patron saint of children;[57] meanwhile, the fact that he was shown with a barrel led people to conclude that he was the patron saint of brewers.[58]

According to another story, during a great famine that Myra experienced in 311–312, a ship was in the port at anchor, loaded with wheat for the Emperor in Constantinople. Nicholas invited the sailors to unload a part of the wheat to help in the time of need. The sailors at first disliked the request, because the wheat had to be weighed accurately and delivered to the Emperor. Only when Nicholas promised them that they would not suffer any loss for their consideration, the sailors agreed. When they arrived later in the capital, they made a surprising find: the weight of the load had not changed, although the wheat removed in Myra was enough for two full years and could even be used for sowing.[59]

Relics

Veneration and celebrations
Edit

Saint Nicholas (Uroš Predić, 1903)
Among the Greeks and Italians he is a favorite of sailors, fishermen, ships and sailing. As a result, and over time, he has become the patron saint of several cities which maintain harbours. In centuries of Greek folklore, Nicholas was seen as “The Lord of the Sea”, often described by modern Greek scholars as a kind of Christianized version of Poseidon. In modern Greece, he is still easily among the most recognizable saints and 6 December finds many cities celebrating their patron saint. He is also the patron saint of all of Greece and particularly of the Hellenic Navy.[102]

The Eastern Orthodox Saint Nicholas Cathedral in Kuopio, Finland
In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Saint Nicholas’s memory is celebrated on almost every Thursday of the year (together with the Apostles) with special hymns to him which are found in the liturgical book known as the Octoechos. Soon after the transfer of Saint Nicholas’s relics from Myra to Bari, a Russian version of his Life and an account of the transfer of his relics were written by a contemporary to this event.[103] Devotional akathists and canons have been composed in his honour, and are frequently chanted by the faithful as they ask for his intercession. He is mentioned in the Liturgy of Preparation during the Divine Liturgy (Eastern Orthodox Eucharist) and during the All-Night Vigil. Many Orthodox churches will have his icon, even if they are not named after him. In Oriental Orthodoxy, the Coptic Church observes the Departure of St. Nicholas on 10 Kiahk, or 10 Taḫśaś in Ethiopia, which corresponds to the Julian Calendar’s 6 December and Gregorian Calendar’s 19 December.[104][105]

Saint Nicholas depicted in a 14th-century English book of hours
Nicholas had a reputation for secret gift-giving, such as putting coins in the shoes of those who left them out for him, a practice celebrated on his feast day, 6 December. For those who still observe the Julian calendar the celebration currently takes place thirteen days later than it happens in the Gregorian calendar and Revised Julian calendar.[106]

In Monaco, the Cathedral of Our Lady Immaculate was built from 1874 on the site of St Nicholas’s church, founded in 1252. A children’s Mass is still held on 6 December in the cathedral.

In late medieval England, on Saint Nicholas Day parishes held Yuletide “boy bishop” celebrations. As part of this celebration, youths performed the functions of priests and bishops, and exercised rule over their elders. Today, Saint Nicholas is still celebrated as a great gift-giver in several Western European and Central European countries. According to one source, in medieval times nuns used the night of 6 December to deposit baskets of food and clothes anonymously at the doorsteps of the needy. According to another source, on 6 December every sailor or ex-sailor of the Low Countries (which at that time was virtually all of the male population) would descend to the harbour towns to participate in a church celebration for their patron saint. On the way back they would stop at one of the various Nicholas fairs to buy some hard-to-come-by goods, gifts for their loved ones and invariably some little presents for their children. While the real gifts would only be presented at Christmas, the little presents for the children were given right away, courtesy of Saint Nicholas. This and his miracle of him resurrecting the three butchered children made Saint Nicholas a patron saint of children and later students as well.[107]

Santa Claus evolved from Dutch traditions regarding Saint Nicholas (Sinterklaas). When the Dutch established the colony of New Amsterdam, they brought the legend and traditions of Sinterklaas with them.[108] Howard G. Hageman, of New Brunswick Theological Seminary, maintains that the tradition of celebrating Sinterklaas in New York existed in the early settlements of the Hudson Valley, although by the early nineteenth century had fallen by the way.[109] St. Nicholas Park, located at the intersection of St. Nicholas Avenue and 127th Street, in an area originally settled by Dutch farmers, is named for St. Nicholas of Myra.[110]

Nicholas is honored in the Church of England and in the Episcopal Church on 6 December.[111][112]

Saint Holy Hierarch Nicholas of Myra in Lycia, Wonderworker feast days[113]
Edit
1 April – Beginning of the journey from Myra to Bari, in 1087
9 May – Translation of the relics of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker from Myra to Bari, in 1087,
10 May – Passage of the relics (sojourn) in 1087 of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker through the island of Zakynthos, while on their way to Bari.
20 May – Arrival of the relics in Bari
29 July – Nativity of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker
movable holiday on Sunday between 16 and 22 August – Synaxis of All Saints of Lefkada
22 September – Synaxis of All Saints of Tula (commemoration of the protection of Tula from the invasion of the Crimean Khan Devlet Giray in 1552)
6 December – commemoration of his death anniversary
Iconography
Edit

Russian Orthodox statue of Saint Nicolas, now in a corner near the church in Demre

Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of Russian merchants. Fresco by Dionisius from the Ferapontov Monastery.
Saint Nicholas is a popular subject portrayed on countless Eastern Orthodox icons, particularly Russian and Serbian ones. He is depicted as an Orthodox bishop, wearing the omophorion and holding a Gospel Book. Sometimes he is depicted wearing the Eastern Orthodox mitre, sometimes he is bareheaded. Iconographically, Nicholas is depicted as an elderly man with a short, full, white, fluffy beard and balding head. In commemoration of the miracle attributed to him by tradition at the Council of Nicaea, he is sometimes depicted with Christ over his left shoulder holding out a Gospel Book to him and the Theotokos over his right shoulder holding the omophorion. Because of his patronage of mariners, occasionally Saint Nicholas will be shown standing in a boat or rescuing drowning sailors; Medieval Chants and Polyphony, image on the cover of the Book of Hours of Duke of Berry, 1410.[114]

A large (184 cm in height) icon of St Nicholas painted in 1294 for the Lipno Church
In depictions of Saint Nicholas from Bari, he is usually shown as dark-skinned, probably to emphasize his foreign origin.[115] The emphasis on his foreignness may have been intended to enhance Bari’s reputation by displaying that it had attracted the patronage of a saint from a far-off country.[115] In Roman Catholic iconography, Saint Nicholas is depicted as a bishop, wearing the insignia of this dignity: a bishop’s vestments, a mitre and a crozier. The episode with the three dowries is commemorated by showing him holding in his hand either three purses, three coins or three balls of gold. Depending on whether he is depicted as patron saint of children or sailors, his images will be completed by a background showing ships, children or three figures climbing out of a wooden barrel (the three slaughtered children he resurrected).[116]

In a strange twist, the three gold balls referring to the dowry affair are sometimes metaphorically interpreted as being oranges or other fruits. As in the Low Countries in medieval times oranges most frequently came from Spain, this led to the belief that the Saint lives in Spain and comes to visit every winter bringing them oranges, other ‘wintry’ fruits and tales of magical creatures.[116]

Music
Edit

In 1948, Benjamin Britten completed a cantata, Saint Nicolas on a text by Eric Crozier which covers the saint’s legendary life in a dramatic sequence of events. A tenor soloist appears as Saint Nicolas, with a mixed choir, boys singers, strings, piano duet, organ and percussion.[117]

See also
Edit

Saints portal
Saint Nicholas (European folklore)
Companions of Saint Nicholas
Saint Nicholas Day
Saint Nicholas, patron saint archive
Belznickel
St. Nicholas Church (disambiguation)
Notes
Edit

^ Greek: Ἅγιος Νικόλαος, Hágios Nikólaos; Latin: Sanctus Nicolaus
^ The date of his birth and the year of his death are disputed,[5] but 6 December has long been established as the traditional date of his death.[5] Jeremy Seal remarks, “As vampires shun daylight, so saints are distinguished from ordinary mortals by the anniversaries they keep. The date of their death rather than their birth is commemorated.”[6]
^ Νικόλαος ὁ Θαυματουργός, Nikólaos ho Thaumaturgós
^ Joe L. Wheeler and Jona Lendering both note that the legends of Saint Nicholas are filled with sets of three, which may be symbolic for Nicholas’s vehement defense of the Holy Trinity.[32][22]
References

Further reading
Edit

Asano, Kazoo, ed. (2010). The Island of St. Nicholas. Excavation and Research of Gemiler Island Area, Lycia, Turkey. Osaka: Osaka University Press.
Wheeler, Joe L. & Rosenthal, Jim (2006). St. Nicholas: A Closer Look at Christmas. Nashville, TN: Nelson Reference & Electronic. ISBN 9781418504076.
External links

Last edited 6 hours ago by Entranced98
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