SAINT Nick, or Santa Claus, is a man who never fails to bring smiles on the faces of children during the Christmas season.
Skinny or husky in red suit and white fur, he is identified as a holy man of long ago. His name is Nicholas, Bishop of Myra in Asia Minor, a place in the southern cost of the modern-day Turkey.
An only child of a wealthy family, he is charitable to the needy and generous to the poor. After distributing his possessions to the poor, he entered the seminary.
His uncle, also named Nicholas, the Bishop of Patara, ordained the younger Nicholas to priesthood. He became an Abbot and later as Bishop of Myra.
During his time, a heresay initiated by Arius, a priest, professed that Jesus was not God but only a man. Nicholas, in the assembly of bishops, signed the document affirming the divinity of Christ in the Council of Nicea in 325.
He suffered imprisonment and torture during the persecution of the church under Diocletian, when churches were destroyed, sacred books were burned and Christians were tortured and executed. He was “one of the few saints who escaped martyrdom.”
He died at 65 in 345 or 350 and is depicted as an old Santa Claus, jolly and generous.
Christians in Myra, to honor his memory, leave gifts for their children, on the eve of his feastday by their bedside to surprise them.
In 1087 his relics were allegedly stolen from his church in Myra and brought to Bari, Italy, by Italian sailors or merchants.
Now, his relics were enshrined in Saint Nichola, Bari, Italy, and venerated to this day for their healing powers.
Numerous churches had been named after him, 2,000 in Europe, 400 in England, 300 in Belgium, 34 in Rome and 23 in the Netherlands, according to Saint Nicholas center.
Miracle worker
A miracle worker, he is the patron of difficult cases, like Saint Jude Thaddeus and Saint Rita of Cascia. A friend and protector of people in trouble, he is the patron saint of orphans, lawyers, laborers, travelers, merchants, prisoners, maidens, paupers, judges, bakers and pawnbrokers, among others.
When Pope Urban II went to Bari in 1089 for the transfer of the relics of Saint Eustachius to the church, he also consecrated an altar in honor of Saint Nicholas.
Malcolm Day in A Treasury of Saints chronicled how a fragrance of myrrh filled the air. Pilgrims came to enjoy it and regarded him as Patron of Perfumes, and his shrine became a center of pilgrimage in Europe.
Church literature is replete with the miracles he performed to help the poor.
During his time, a dowry is a must for girls to marry. A very poor father was worried about his three children doomed to poverty or prostitution for his inability to produce a dowry for them. The generous Nicholas, under the cover of the dark night, threw three bags of gold coins in the open window for their dowry. The third time he did it the father saw him and the story spread.
In a pilgrimage to Holy Land a storm threatened to wreck a vessel with three terrified sailors. Nicholas prayed and rescued the sailors. His kind deed spread and he was named the patron of sailors and voyagers.
On December 6, his feast day, his image is taken out to the sea on a boat and returned in the evening with a torchlight procession as patron saint of mariners.
In France a story is told of how he saved three small children who were captured by an evil butcher. He rescued the children and returned them to their families.
While traveling in Athens, he stopped at an inn for the night. He dreamt that the innkeeper murdered three theology students and hid their remains in a tub. After praying, he called the innkeeper who showed the tub. And the saint restored the students to life.
The first story, which made him famous as a protector of children happened in Myra. On the eve of a feast day, a bond of Arab pirates took Basilio and made him a cupbearer of the Emir.
On the following year’s festivity, Nicholas returned the boy to his parents after blessing him. Since then, he became known as a protector of children.
Even in death, his face as a patron of the needy flourished. In the cathedral where he was buried, a unique relic formed on his grave. Called “Manna”, it healed people who touched it.
Saint Nicholas; Modernized
In the 11th century, a custom of distributing sweets to children on December 6, the Eve of his feastday, originated.
A folklore in Northern Germany transformed him to Weihnachtsmann, the man Klaus of Christmas Eve or Father Christmas. Although the Reformation in Europe during the 1500 stopped the practice of honoring saints, Santa Claus remained an important historical figure.
When the Dutch Protestants arrived in New Amsterdam (New York) in the 17th century, they brought with them Sint Nikolaas/Sinterklaas, the tradition of gift giving, as part of Christmas holiday.
In 1822 Dr. Clement Clark Moore, a professor at New York’s Seminary, wrote: “A visit from Saint Nicholas. He was the first to describe him as a jolly old man whose round belly shook when he laughs, Ho… ho… ho…”
Thomas Nast a German cartoonist used Moore’s description in drawing Santa Claus. Harper’s Weekly published Nast’s Santa, which today is the model used to depict him. American writers invented his riding on a sleigh with reindeers from the North Pole, coming to houses through the chimneys and leaving gifts under the Christmas tree.
Santiago is a former regional director of the Department of Education National Capital Region. She is currently a faculty member of Mater Redemptoris College in Calauan, Laguna.
Image credits: Wikimedia Commons