Strange Adventures Of The Saint's Body
( Originally Published 1909 )
St. Nicholas died in the year 343 and was buried with great honor in the cathedral at Myra.
Being the patron saint of such roving folk as sailors, merchants and travelers it was only natural that his body should have lain in perpetual peril from thievish hands. The relics of saints were highly prized because it was held that they performed miracles on behalf of the townsfolk and of the strangers who visited their shrines. Of course the relics of so great and, popular a saint as Nicholas were especially coveted, and most so by the classes of whom he was the patron.
In those days, it was believed that no saint was greatly troubled by the manner in which his body was procured. Even if it were stolen and reburied elsewhere by the robbers themselves the body worked miracles in its new abode as cheerfully as it had done in the old one. Moreover it drew trade and custom to any city in which it was enshrined and so brought wealth to the people of the entire neighborhood.
In fact pilgrims from various parts of the world came in crowds to the shrine at Myra. As the fame of Saint Nicholas increased so did the value of his relics. At various times during the first six centuries after his burial, attempts were made to carry off his body by force or by fraud.
None of these attempts was successful until, in the year 1084. Certain merchants from the city of Bari, in southeastern Italy, landed at Myra to find that the entire countryside had been laid waste by a Muslim invasion. All the men who could bear arms had gathered together and were now gone in pursuit of the invaders. Three monks had been left behind to stand guard over the shrine of Saint Nicholas.
It was an easy task for the merchants of Bari to overpower these monks, break open the coffin which contained the body and bear it away with them to their own city.
Here it was received with great joy. A fine new church was built on the site of an old one which had been dedicated to Saint Stephen. This was torn down to make room for its successor. This new church was to serve as a shrine for the stolen body.
In a crypt or vault under its high altar lies all that was mortal of the one-time Bishop of Myra. On the very day of the reburial, so it is said, no less than thirty people who attended the ceremony were cured of their various ailments.
Such is the story that is generally accepted. But another story was and is told by the people of Venice. They, too, claim that they possess the body of Saint Nicholas, and insist that it was taken from Myra by Venetian merchants in the year 1100, and reburied in Venice by the citizens.
They do not accept the story told by the Bari merchants, but declare that the latter carried off from another spot the body of another saint, possibly of the same name, which they palmed off upon their fellow citizens as the body of the former Bishop of Myra.
The true body, they claim, is that which lies today, as it has lain for centuries, in the church of St. Nicholas on the Lido. The Lido is a bank of sand which projects, promontory fashion, out of the Grand Canal in Venice into the Adriatic Sea.
The fame of a holy man so closely connected with two great trading ports of the Middle Ages was sure to spread wider and wider among the nations of Europe. And, indeed, we find that everywhere sailors acknowledged him as their special guide and protector and sang his praises wherever they landed.
Both at Bari and at Venice the churches dedicated in his honor stand close to the mouth of the harbor. Venetian crews on their way out to sea would land at the Lido and proceed to the church of St. Nicholas, there to ask for a blessing on their voyage. There also they would stop on their home-coming to give thanks for a safe return. Sailors of Bari would in the same way honor the shrine in which lay what they claimed was the true body of Saint Nicholas.
Many tales of miraculous escapes from shipwreck, due to the intercession of their patron, were related by seamen and travelers, not only at home, but at the various ports where they stopped, so that the name and fame of the good Saint Nicholas grew more resplendent every year. Churches erected in his honor abound in the fishing villages and harbors of Europe.
In England alone, before the Reformation, there were 376 churches which bore his name. The largest parish church in the entire land is that of St. Nicholas at Yarmouth, which was built in the twelfth century and retains that name to the present day. Some of the other churches were rebaptized by the Protestants.
The churches dedicated to Saint Nicholas in Catholic countries are especially dear to people who make their living out of the sea. Sailors and fishermen when ashore frequent them, and if they have just escaped from any of the perils of the deep they show gratitude to their patron by hanging up on the church walls what are known as votive pictures. These are either prints of the saint or sketches, rudely drawn by local artists, which represent the danger that the sailors had run and the manner in which they had escaped: Often a figure of Saint Nicholas appears in the darkened heavens to calm: the f ears of the imperilled mariners.
It is fishermen and sailors also who take the chief part in the great festival in honor of Saint Nicholas that is celebrated at Bari on the fifth land sixth of December in every year. Bari, it may be well to explain, is a very old and still a very important seaport on the eastern coast of southern Italy. It is situated on a small peninsula projecting into the Adriatic. From very early days the city has been the official seat of an archbishop and hence possesses a grand old cathedral.
Excerpted from: Strange Adventures Of The Saint's Body
http://www.oldandsold.com/articles03/santaclaus2.shtml
| 
Dear Friends,