The Bones of St Nicholas

St Nicholas and Krampus, by tis1451

Pastor’s Epistle—December 2023

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father.

—John 14:12

One of the perks of being a Christian of a catholic disposition—by which I mean coming from a religious tradition that emphasizes liturgy, history, the sacraments and saints—is that I, as a grown man, get to continue proudly to believe in Santa Claus. Not only that, but the stories about Santa Claus only improve as one delves deeper into his legend.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. I have a vial of the oil from his bones.

Perhaps I should back up a tick. The story of St Nicholas begins, as do so many good things, with a mother’s prayer. Nonna and Theophannes were a Greek Christian couple living in third-century Lycia, reckoned today as part of Turkey. They had everything they could want: wealth, respect, an honorable bloodline; everything except a child.

Nonna’s prayers were answered late in life, and she bore a son, Nicholas, named for his uncle in the monastery. Alas, both parents would soon be lost to a plague, and the young Nicholas would be raised by his elder namesake as a monk. When Nicholas was as yet a young man, he found himself elected bishop, much to his own chagrin, in response to a miraculous vision.

There remained the issue of his inheritance. Theophannes and Nonna had left him rather a nice nest egg, which he was determined to give to the poor. A local family had fallen on hard times, and without dowries their three daughters could not wed—a catastrophe in ancient Rome. Hearing of their plight, Nicholas by night threw a bag of gold through a window of the house, so that coins scattered across shoes they had left by the fireplace to dry.

He repeated this stealthy mission twice more, providing three separate dowries, and at his final visit the father caught him in the act and fell to thanking him profusely. Nicholas asked only that the father of the three girls tell no-one—so of course everybody heard it soon enough.

Nicholas would go on to have one of the most remarkable careers of any churchman. Miracles were attributed to him literally from day one. He could fly, they said. He could calm storms. He could raise the dead, and multiply food! He could even bilocate—a rare gift associated with only the holiest of saints—so that while serving his flock in Myra, he could simultaneously visit the Emperor in Rome.

Because Myra was a port city, tales of Nicholas the Wonderworker soon spread to every corner of the classical world. To this day, more airports, hospitals, and schools in the Christian East are named for him than for any other saint. A pious Orthodox household can well be expected to display four icons: one of Jesus, one of Mary holding Jesus, one of St George, and one of St Nick. And he only grew more beloved after his death.

Nicholas became an ur-saint, patron of everyone and everything from students and sailors to pawnbrokers and highwaymen. On his feast day, 6 December, merchants sold toys and sweets for children, gifts for travelers to bring happily home. Oranges represented the pouches of gold he’d once thrown through that window. And the miracles kept on coming.

Almost immediately upon interment in his bishopric of Myra, a clear and fragrant oil started leaking from his bones. So much did his remains produce of this substance that the church bottled it and sent it to parishes around the world. Even today, innumerable Eastern churches contain a little alcove with a vial of “Nicholas Manna,” for use in anointings for healing.

By the Year of Our Lord 1087, the Normans—basically Vikings who’d bothered to learn French —ruled the surprisingly potent Mediterranean Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. They had all that a conquering power could want, save for a patron saint who might bring with him not only social respectability but a lucrative pilgrim trade. Who would be a better choice than St Nicholas of Myra, whose relics now rested conveniently in a land threatened by Muslim invaders?

So the French-Italian Vikings set off for Anatolia, and when they arrived at Nicholas’ church they asked the monastics where they might find the saint. “Why?” a monk asked suspiciously. “Have you come to take him away?” The Normans hemmed and hawed a bit, then drew their swords and tied up the monks, taking care not to kill anybody. They were really rather proud of that.

A beefy fellow named Matthew raised his warhammer and split the stone covering Nicholas’ tomb beneath his feet. In he fell, to find himself waist-deep in a clear, floral oil, with the bones of St Nicholas floating about. He scooped up as a many as he could into a sack, leaving a rib or two behind, and the Normans raced back to Italy where they were welcomed as heroes for “rescuing” St Nicholas, whose relics were translated (reinterred) beneath the cathedral at Bari.

We remember Nicholas for his faith, his generosity, his unwavering compassion for the littlest and least, and the wonders that he worked for the love of Jesus Christ. His image may have altered over time, yet he remains the very soul of Christian magnanimity, the spirit of giving, the blazing heart of light and life amidst the winter snows. Santa Claus is Christian to his core.

To this day, deep in the catacombs, from the bones of St Nicholas flows a transparent, sweet-smelling fluid, which his caretakers mix and bottle with blessed water for distribution to the faithful. In 1953, a trio of representatives from the Vatican, the Italian state, and the University of Rome together descended beneath Bari to get to the heart of the matter.

There they found a tomb engraved with the name “Nicholas,” filled with and leaking fragrant holy oil. I have a bottle of it on a shelf in my office. Beats the heck out of milk and cookies.

In Jesus. Amen.