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The Origin of St. Nicholas - for the Snowflakes
copyright 2017 - Stephen Redgwell

The man who would become Saint Nicholas was born in 270 AD in a small village called Patara, in what is now part of modern Turkey. At the time, it was part of Greece. By the time he died in 343 AD, he had become a legend. Many people acknowledged the life of a man who they considered a noble servant of God.

This isn't a religious story, so if you don't believe in Santa Claus, the RC Church or chocolate (I'll get to that), you can still read this. But really, since you're here and not celebrating the holiday with friends, what can it hurt?



This is the extraneous part of my story. Hey, I have to pad it out a little, okay?

I'm going to start with the English, and some unclean, smelly, sweaty knights. It was the Crusades. In their typically, snooty fashion, the English figured the world was theirs. They would quickly learn this was not the case, but I do not want to get ahead of myself.

I should also explain that while most people only think of the Middle East when the Crusades is mentioned, there were other places the Brits went to fight. They fought in parts of Continental Europe, Lappland (Sweden and Finland) and the Middle East, but they were run off everywhere. I think that's why so many countries in Europe don't care for the UK, even today.

But while they aggravated parts of central and northern Europe, they really made a mess of the Middle East. They fought for about 200 years (1095 to 1291 AD) trying to take over a big field of sand, full of ticks and camel spiders. To me, that suggests the English weren't too bright. This was before anyone knew about oil, when water was hard to find, and no one wanted to go away for 6 months or a year to bring home a basket of dates! Frankly, there was nothing of value in the region.

But the English were nothing, if not stupid. This was how it went down. Richard the Lion Hearted was an English, Roman Catholic king who served the Latin Church, the old name for the RC church. Dick - his family and friends called him Dick - decided to try again, and make a third crusade to the Middle East, from 1189 to 1192. The British claimed that it was a victory, but it was a minor one, if anything. They failed to take Jerusalem, which was one of their main objectives.

I suspect this was when the term "What a dick!" was born. Like a fool, Richard sent a bunch of knights, on horses, wearing heavy armour, in the heat, to fight thousands of properly clad Arabs on camels. I mean really, how stupid can you get?

If the Brits thought that Arabs would like Englishmen, Christianity or, by extension, St. Nick, they were living in a dream world. They talked about St. Nick when they were in the sand box, and even carried pictures of him, but guess what? The Muslim Arabs didn't care for these smelly, strange talking invaders or their saint! And as you might have guessed, anything white and western ticked off the Arabs. While the English were western, pale skinned people, Nick was neither western, nor white. If you remember, he was Greek.

Okay, for the younger ones, a teensy explanation of events. In the old days, hardly anyone could read or write, and pictures had to be drawn by hand. Yes, it's hard to believe, but they didn't have electricity or Twitter! Since this was before the Internet, the Arabs thought Nick was a Britisher from Leeds or London or somewhere.

They thought he looked like this.



Note the pale skin and blue eyes. An artist's rendering, okay?

So the Arabs sent the English packing - to use a British expression.

Back to St. Nick.

Nick traveled around the Middle East in the late 200s AD, but his message of Christian love and stuff didn't work, so he headed home. But the Latin Church was good with his messages about kindness, charity, etc., and made him Bishop of Myra (now near Demre, on the south coast of Turkey) sometime around 303 AD.

A few years later, Nick was jailed in what historians called the last, big persecution of Christians (see The Life of Brian for more details.) Yes, I know Brian was Jewish and a fictional story, but the Romans didn't like anybody, and crucified whoever rubbed them the wrong way.

The Romans were responsible for Nick being locked up. They wanted folks to worship the Roman gods, like they once did. So Christians got picked on...again!

Things weren't looking good for Nick or Christians generally, when along came Constantine, another Roman, who became Emperor. He had converted to Christianity and let all the persecuted Christians out of prison. Constantine probably liked the idea of getting chocolates and presents at Christmas, so he switched to the Latin Church. But he was rich and stuff, so I don't really believe the chocolate and presents thing. Anyway, if is wasn't for him, Nick would have died in a dark and dirty prison cell somewhere.

To sum up, around 343 AD, Nick died. They say he died in December, 343 AD, but that's a guess. Accuracy isn't important for this legend anyway. Shortly thereafter, Santa was born.

So how did St. Nicholas morph into Santa? Simple. Christianity needed to grow. Nicholas was liked by a lot of people, and stories about him being a devout man of God spread far and wide. He was a good role model and that made it easy to communicate a positive message. Naturally, with the passage of time, the stories were embellished. In the 1800 years since Saint Nicholas' death, the legend has been enriched by countless storytellers from around the world. We now have Christmas trees, presents, elves, and a residence at the North Pole, to mention a few.

These days, Saint Nick is less of a religious symbol and more story figure for children. Regardless, Santa's origins came from Saint Nicholas, the Bishop of Myra, a devout, Greek Christian.