Santa Claus

Once Upon A Time There Was A Man
The jolly, fatherly figure of Father Christmas, with his white beard and pink cheeks, has been eagerly awaited by children at Christmas for centuries. Did you know that this bringer of gifts and protector of the poor and needy actually lived in the South of Turkey? In fact, Saint Nicholas, alias Father Christmas, alias Santa Claus, was a real person who lived near Antalya in the warm climate of southern Turkey rather than in the icy Arctic desert. Born at Patara near Kalkan, he spent most of his life at Myra, 140 kilometers southwest of Antalya.

Saint Nicholas was elected bishop of Myra during the reign of Diocletian and died here around AD 350. The church of St. Nicholas is not where he preached, but was first built around his tomb in the 6th century, and later rebuilt by the Byzantine Emperor Constantine IX in 1043. The bishop was renowned for his charitable deeds, and after his death became the most venerated saint of the Orthodox Christian world, particularly Russia.

When Myra and its shrine were taken by the Moslems, the relics were translated to Bari, Italy, where many Greek immigrants resided. Here a new church was built to house the relics, and Pope Urban II, who held a council at Bari in 1095, was present at the inauguration. From this time onwards Nicholas's cult became almost universal in the West.

His reputation as a miracle-worker was both cause and effect of his many patronages. Countries such as Russia, towns such as St. Nicholas at Wade (Kent), children, sailors, unmarried girls, merchants, pawnbrokers, apothecaries, and perfumiers all claim him as their patron saint. Some of these patronages are linked with episodes in his legendary acts. He was reputed to have given three bags of gold to three girls for their marriage dowries in order to save them from prostitution. It seems that this is the basis for the use of three gold balls as the pawnbroker's sign. The number three appears several times in his legend, as in the case of three boys whom he is said to have raised to life after they were murdered in a brine-tub by a butcher, and in his saving three unjustly condemned men from death, as well as three sailors near the coast of Turkey. From his shrine at Bari there came a substance sometimes called 'manna' or else a fragrant 'myrrh' which explains his patronage of perfumiers: whatever it may have been, it attracted numerous pilgrims to his shrine.

Saint Nicholas was so celebrated that no less than 25 other churches in his name were built in Istanbul and 45 in Rome, not to mention 40 in Iceland. In England about 400 churches were dedicated to Nicholas. Also in England there survive two important iconographical cycles of his life, on the font at Winchester cathedral and on an ivory crozier-head at the Victoria and Albert Museum, both from the 12th century. He was probably the most frequently represented saintly bishop for several centuries.

Perhaps the most popular result of his cult is the institution of Santa Claus. Based ultimately on Nicholas' patronage of children with its attendant custom in the Low Countries of giving them presents on his feast, it attained its present form in North America, where the Dutch Protestants of New Amsterdam united to it Nordic folkloric legends of a magician who both punished naughty children and rewarded good ones with presents.

The name Nicholas has been in use in England from Anglo-Saxon times and became very popular in the 12th century. lt gave rise to numerous names such as Colin, Nicolson. Nixon. Nicola. Nicolette, among others.

The feast day of Saint Nicholas has been celebrated throughout Europe since mediaeval times. The 6th of December is widely celebrated as the day of Santa Claus, whereas he is also expected on Christmas Eve, the 24th of December; as well as the New Years Eve by the children of the world. Saint Nicholas gradually made the metamorphosis into the red-suited character riding in a sleigh drawn by reindeer; so different yet with the same kindly heart as the ancient bishop of Myra. And it seems his name will live on as long as human kind exists.