The Wisdom of Saints: St Nicholas of Myra

The Feast of Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, c. 343

O ALMIGHTY God, who willest to be glorified in thy Saints, and didst raise up thy servant Nicholas to shine as a light in the world: Shine, we pray thee, in our hearts, that we also in our generation may show forth thy praises, who hast called us out of darkness into thy marvellous light; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The season of Advent is also one that is fraught, in the secular world, with images of the secular notion of Christmas: generosity and giving, and for the children, Santa Clause. While there is nothing wrong with promoting these virtues, setting aside the fact that they are in fact not the “reason for the season” or the fact that it is Advent and not Christmas itself, it is Santa Clause that will draw the attention of this month’s entry in the Wisdom of Saints, with a discussion of the life of St Nicholas of Myra, also known as St Nicholas the Wonder-worker, the inspiration for the mythical figure of Santa Clause.

A Christian friend recently discussed his distress at having to decide how to approach the issue of Santa Clause with his firstborn son. Do you say that Santa Clause—and other common children’s fantasies such as the tooth fairy—is real, only to have them realise later that it is not true or do you approach it another way. My suggestion at the time was simple: teach them about St Nicholas.

No direct writing of St Nicholas survives, and the oldest accounts of his life were made several hundred years after his death, so there are many varying accounts and traditions.

St Nicholas was born in 270 in the port city of Patara, bordering the Mediterranean Sea in Asia Minor. His parents were wealthy Christians named Epiphanius and Johanna, and they raised Nicholas to be Christian before dying while Nicholas was still relatively young. He was a pious boy and upon the death of his parents devoted his inherited wealth to charity while he continued to serve the Church. His Uncle, who was Bishop of Patara, tonsured him as a reader and later ordained him as a Presbyter.

One early story of his life in Patara purports that shortly after the death of his parents he learned of a man in the city who had three daughters and no money to support them, or ability to find husbands for them due to the lack of a dowry. He planned to turn his daughters over to prostitution so they could support themselves. Hearing of this, St Nicholas brought a bag of gold and in secret during the night, threw it into the man’s house through an open window. The money was sufficient for the man to find a husband for his eldest daughter. St Nicholas later returned with another bag for the middle daughter and a third time for the youngest.

Around the year 300, St Nicholas travelled to Myra, where it happened that the Bishop of Myra had recently died and other local bishops had gathered to select the next bishop. One of the senior bishops present heard a voice during the night telling him that the first person who entered the church during matins the next morning was to be the next Bishop. The next morning, St Nicholas entered, and after asking his name, the bishop addressed him saying, “Nicholas, servant and friend of God, for your holiness you shall be bishop of this place.”

According St Methodios of Constantinople, writing in the 9th century on the life of St Nicholas, St Nicholas suffered under the Diocletian persecution of the early 4th century:

As he was the chief priest of the Christians of this town and preached the truths of faith with a holy liberty, the divine Nicholas was seized by the magistrates, tortured, then chained and thrown into prison with many other Christians. But when the great and religious Constatine, chosen by God assumed the imperial diadem of the Romans, the prisoners were released from their bonds and with them the illustrious Nicholas, who when he was set at liberty returned to Myra.

After being released from prison he returned to his position as Bishop of Myra, where he spoke out against the Arian controversy, preventing it from taking root within his see. As St Methodios put it, because of his orthodox teachings, the people of Myra rejected Arianism as, “death dealing poison.” St Nicholas attended the First Council of Nicaea in 325 called by Emperor Constantine to address the Arian controversy. He was well-regarded in his time as a tireless advocate against Arianism and against paganism as well.

After his release from prison following the Diocletian persecution, St Nicholas is said to have utterly destroyed the pagan temple to Artemis, the principle pagan deity worshipped in Myra, in Myra. He preached extensively against paganism throughout his days, and orthodox Christian faith.

Another of his most well-known miracles involves the freeing of three innocent men from prison. The local governor had taken a bribe in order to condemn and execute three innocent men, but St Nicholas arrived just in time to stay the hand of their executioner and had them released. Later when the three men were in Constantinople, they were captured by a prefect who again procured warrants for their death from the Emperor Constantine. Awaiting their execution the men prayed for intervention and deliverance, remembering St Nicholas’s intervention previously. That night, St Nicholas appeared to the prefect and to the Emperor in dreams, threatening them and telling them to release the three innocent men. The next morning, Constantine and the prefect conferred and found they had shared the same dream. The three innocent men were questioned and when it was found that had called on God in the name of St Nicholas, who had appeared to Constantine, they were set free and sent to Myra with a letter from Constantine to St Nicholas.

St Nicholas died and was buried in Myra in 343.

Over the centuries, St Nicholas became well-known for both his charity—leaving gold coins in the shoes of his guests—and for performing miracles. Due to one story related to him involving saving children, he became a patron saint for children, and in parts of Europe customs arose involving distributing gifts in his name at Christmas, though this custom did not extend to the English speaking world. It was brought to the Americas by Dutch protestants, where the name Saint Nicholas became corrupted through translation to Santa Clause, and was thus introduced to the English speaking world.

While Santa Clause himself is a fictional character, the spirit of charity represented in gift-giving is thoroughly rooted in the history of St Nicholas the Wonderworker.