Searching for Santa Claus, finding St. Nick
According to the St. Nicholas Center website (based on information from Centro Studi Nicolaiani in Bari): “In the crowded crypt, the Archbishop of Bari extracts one or two glasses of water formed during the year around the Saint’s bones. It is the so-called manna that the Greeks call myron and the Russians myro.
More than 50 years after my brother told me there was no such thing as Santa Claus, I visited his tomb.
Well, OK, not Santa Claus’s tomb per se, but the tomb of his namesake, St. Nick.
And I have discovered that St. Nick — St. Nicholas, to be a little more reverential — has a much more interesting life story than that of the husky, white-bearded man in the red suit, who has been used by marketers over the years to hawk everything from cigarettes, wine and Coca-cola to a sit-down ironing table (a product women found “irresistible” and made them more “relaxed and interesting” gals, according to an advertisement from the 1950s).
PATRON SAINT
But back to St. Nicholas.
He is the patron saint of Bari, Italy, where I am now, and where his remains lie entombed in the awe-inspiring Basilica di San Nicola, opened in 1197.
Although St. Nicholas has become synonymous with Bari and has made this southern Italian city a destination for religious pilgrims, he was born in the ancient city of Patara (then Greek, now in Turkey).
Thought to have lived from 270 to 343 AD, he gained a reputation — as bishop of the municipality of Myra (now Demre, Turkey) — for his good and sometimes miraculous deeds.
GOOD DEEDS
According to one story, on three separate nights he threw a bag of gold pieces into the open window of a house inhabited by a poor man who feared his three daughters would have to turn to prostitution because he could not afford to provide them with dowries.
The gold apparently landed in shoes set before the fire to dry, which has morphed into today’s Christmas stocking tradition.
St. Nicholas has been claimed as the patron saint of many — thieves and judges, but also mariners, travellers and children.
In 1087, Italian sailors took his remains from Turkey — an incident still hotly contested — and brought them to Bari, where the cathedral was specially built to house them.
SANTA CLAUS
How did St. Nicholas become linked to Santa Claus, the kind-hearted character who delivers toys to children at Christmas?
“Santa Claus” is believed to be a bastardization of the “Sinterklaas” character from the Netherlands, a tradition brought to the United States by Dutch settlers.
Sinterklaas was inspired by the life of St. Nicholas, and traditionally wears a red cloak and a bishop’s mitre.
'MANNA' GATHERING
But while Santa Claus has become a beloved symbol of Christmas to people in many countries of the world for his generous gift-giving, St. Nicholas is believed to regularly bestow a gift of a different kind.
In Bari, since 1980, on the evening of May 9 — the anniversary of the saint’s relics being removed to Italy — his tomb is opened to collect the “manna” that has gathered there over the past year.
According to the St. Nicholas Center website (based on information from Centro Studi Nicolaiani in Bari): “In the crowded crypt, the Archbishop of Bari extracts one or two glasses of water formed during the year around the Saint’s bones.
It is the so-called manna that the Greeks call myron and the Russians myro.
A Father of the Dominican Community pours this manna into large containers of blessed water, making a large quantity to fill small bottles in order to satisfy the requests of sick people and pilgrims.”
The liquid, the website continues, “conserved in ampules, are taken in as a drink or sprinkled in the part of the body that is suffering from an illness. … The pious use of the manna is a source of hope and health for those who trustingly abandon themselves to God and true devotion to the Saint of Myra, beseeching his intercession and special protection.”
COINS AND PRAYERS
Having not been witness to this phenomenon, I can only report what I have read.
But what I have seen — and have been moved by — in the Basilica di San Nicola are the many coins and prayers written on pieces of paper that have been tossed beneath a small altar that bears a likeness of St. Nicholas.
The prayers are not for the latest toy or newest model of iphone, but pleas containing the names of loved ones; fervent requests for peace, health and hope.