St. Nicholas Day December 6th
The Birth of Santa Claus in the Eleventh Century
Demre in Southern Turkey on the Mediterranean seacoast is a sleepy, nondescript city. Shops selling icons and other religious paraphernalia line the square. In ancient times, Demre was the seaport Myra, known for over 700 years as the home of St. Nicholas, an early 4th Century bishop imprisoned during the last great persecution under the Emperor Diocletian. His remains were removed, however, in 1087 BCE in an act of piracy and carried to Bari,Italy. The subsequent prosperity of Bari added to the already growing Cult of St. Nicholas throughout Europe and is still celebrated on December 6th by Catholics and Protestants.
Nicholas as Bishop of Myra
Nicholas was born in Patara. When his wealthy parents died, Nicholas used the money to help the poor. Eventually, as Bishop of Myra, several miracles were attributed to him. In one celebrated story, a destitute father of three sisters was going to give them over to a life of prostitution because he could not afford a dowry for a wedding. Three separate times, Nicholas secretly flung bags of gold into their home, saving them from a life of sin.
Another miracle relates the story of three murdered boys that were brought back to life by Nicholas. He also appeared in a dream to Emperor Constantine, appealing for the lives of three condemned men about to be executed. The innocent men were set free by the emperor. Nicholas was also present at the First Council at Nicaea where he denounced the Arian heresy
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The many legends surrounding Nicholas made him the protector of children. His cult helped shape the season of giving as well as the eventual relationship between children and Santa Claus. Medievalists Rosalind and Christopher Brooke point out that the Cult of St. Nicholas was already expanding in Europe before the theft of his remains from Myra and that the act of piracy may well have been a consequence of the growth of the cult.
Death and Legacy of St. Nicholas
The body of Nicholas was placed in a monastery in Myra where it remained until the latter 11th Century. The 1071 battle of Manzikert, however, left the city deserted as Muslims ravaged the Byzantine countryside. The monks living in the monastery fled, returning after the Muslims had left. When the merchants of Bari forcibly took the body of Nicholas, they told the monks that the saint had revealed in a dream his desire to be moved, citing the cowardice of the monks. The subsequent prosperity of Bari served as proof that the saint approved of the change
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In England, the Cult of St. Nicholas signaled the annual election of boy-bishops on December 6th. These youths officiated as bishops until December 28th. The practice was eventually abolished during the reign of Elizabeth I but continued in Germany until the end of the 18th-Century. In the Netherlands, the Dutch Sint Klaes gave way to Santa Claus and it was the Dutch that richly embellished the legend, turning the saint into the familiar figure wearing red and carrying a sack of toys to give to children.
John Delaney writes that the Santa Claus image may have been a merging of the St. Nicholas legend as well as old Germanic pagan folklore. In this belief, the god Thor, associated with winter and other Christmas symbols like the Yule log, rode in a chariot drawn by goats. As the Cult of Nicholas grew, Christian traditions and legends blended with more ancient beliefs, ultimately creating the modern image of Santa Claus.
Sources:
- Rosalind and Christopher Brooke, Popular Religion in the Middle Ages: Western Europe 1000-1300 (Thames and Hudson, 1984)
- John J. Delaney, Dictionary of the Saints (Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1980)
- Anna G. Edmonds, Turkey’s Religious Sites (Istanbul: Damko Publications, 1998)
- Jonathan Sumption, Pilgrimage: An Image of Mediaeval Religion (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1975)
- [Author's Visit to tomb in 2007]
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