Saint Nicholas of Myra (also known as Nicholas of Bari) was a Christian bishop of Greek background from the port city of Patara in Anatolia (in today’s Antalya Province, Turkey) during the Roman Empire.
Tradition says he was born on 15 March 270 and died on 6 December 343. Because many miracles were credited to his prayers, people called him “Nicholas the Wonderworker.” Over time he became the patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, children, brewers, pawnbrokers, toymakers, unmarried people, and students in many parts of Europe. His reputation grew in the usual way early saints’ reputations did: through pious stories. His habit of secretly giving gifts, especially to the poor, eventually turned into the legend of Santa Claus (“Saint Nick”) through the Dutch figure of Sinterklaas.
Historically, very little about Nicholas can be known for certain. The first written accounts of his life were composed several centuries after he died and are full of legendary material. According to tradition, he was born in the wealthy Christian family of a couple in Patara, a seaport in Lycia in Asia Minor.
One of the oldest and most famous stories about him says that he saved three young girls from being forced into prostitution. Their father was poor and could not provide dowries so they could marry. Nicholas is said to have gone to their house at night on three different nights and thrown bags of gold coins through the window, enough for each girl’s dowry.
Other early legends say that Nicholas calmed a storm at sea, saved three innocent soldiers from being executed, and cut down a tree believed to be haunted by a demon. As a young man he is said to have gone on pilgrimage to Egypt and to the Holy Land (Syria Palaestina).
After he returned, he became bishop of the nearby city of Myra. During the persecution of Christians under Emperor Diocletian, Nicholas was supposedly imprisoned and possibly tortured, but later released when Constantine became emperor.
Some early lists say Nicholas attended the First Council of Nicaea in 325, but he is not mentioned by writers who were actually there. Much later legends, not supported by early evidence, claim that at the council he slapped the heretic Arius across the face, for which he was stripped of his bishop’s garments and jailed, only to be miraculously restored by Christ and the Virgin Mary in a vision.
Another late legend says that he brought back to life three children who had been murdered by a butcher, cut up, and pickled in brine to be sold as pork during a famine.
Less than two hundred years after his death, Emperor Theodosius II ordered a church built in Myra in honor of Saint Nicholas, on the site where he had served as bishop, and his remains were placed in a sarcophagus there.
In 1087, when the region’s Greek Christians had fallen under the control of the Muslim Seljuk Turks and relations between Eastern and Western Christians were tense, merchants from the Italian city of Bari secretly took most of Nicholas’s bones from his tomb without permission and brought them to Bari. There they were placed in the Basilica di San Nicola, where they remain. Later, Venetian sailors took the remaining fragments during the First Crusade and brought them to Venice.
No writings by Nicholas himself survive, and no contemporary historian mentions him, which is not surprising given how troubled that period of Roman history was. Still, by the sixth century his cult was already well established. The building and later renovation of churches dedicated to him, and references by Byzantine writers, show that his name was well known.
His name appears in some lists as “Nicholas of Myra of Lycia” among the bishops at Nicaea, and he is mentioned briefly in the life of another saint, Nicholas of Sion, who reportedly visited his tomb. The simple fact that he had a tomb people could visit is one of the strongest signs that there really was a historical Bishop Nicholas of Myra.
Around 583, the theologian Eustratius of Constantinople cited one of Nicholas’s miracles, the saving of three generals, as proof that souls could act apart from the body. Eustratius said he found this story in a now-lost “Life of Saint Nicholas,” probably written not long after Nicholas’s death, in the late fourth or early fifth century.
The earliest full biography that still exists is a “Life of Saint Nicholas” written by Michael the Archimandrite in the early ninth century, about five hundred years after Nicholas died. Although it is late, scholars think it uses much older written sources and oral traditions. The exact nature and reliability of those sources is uncertain, but many historians view Michael’s Life as the only account likely to preserve some historical truth.
Some scholars note that Michael’s Life does not include a dramatic “conversion story,” which was common in later saint biographies, suggesting he may have copied an older source written before that style became popular.
Many stories about Nicholas in Michael’s work resemble stories told about Apollonius of Tyana, a first-century pagan philosopher, whose life was written by Philostratus in the third century. It was common for Christian saints’ legends to borrow from earlier pagan stories. Since Apollonius’ hometown was not far from Myra, it is possible that popular tales about Apollonius were gradually transferred to Nicholas.
One traditional story says that when Nicholas returned from the Holy Land, the bishop of Myra had just died and the priests had decided that the first priest to enter the church in the morning would be chosen as the new bishop. Nicholas went to pray early, was the first to arrive, and so was made bishop.
Another tradition says that he was imprisoned and tortured during Diocletian’s Great Persecution but later freed by Constantine. This sounds reasonable but is not found in the earliest sources and may therefore not be historical.
A famous early miracle story, first clearly recorded by Michael the Archimandrite, tells how Nicholas saved three innocent men from execution. The governor Eustathius had condemned them to death, but as they were about to be beheaded, Nicholas appeared, grabbed the executioner’s sword, freed the men, and scolded the corrupt officials who had taken bribes.
Another story has Nicholas appearing in dreams to Emperor Constantine and the consul Ablabius, demanding the release of three generals who had been falsely accused and imprisoned because of lies and bribery. Later versions combine these stories and add details: three trusted generals are forced by bad weather to stop in Myra, Nicholas stops their soldiers from looting, rescues three innocent men from execution with their help, and later appears in dreams to clear the generals’ names after they are slandered.
The legend about Nicholas at the Council of Nicaea says he was a strong opponent of Arianism and a supporter of the doctrine of the Trinity, and that he signed the Nicene Creed. Early lists of council attendees sometimes include his name, sometimes not. Some scholars think his name was added later out of embarrassment that such a famous bishop seemed to be missing; others think he really was there but his name was later removed.
The story that he slapped Arius is only found in sources more than a thousand years after his death and is not considered historically reliable by most historians, though some argue it might be true precisely because it is embarrassing rather than flattering. In later, more dramatic versions, he is stripped of his bishop’s garments, imprisoned, then miraculously freed and restored by Christ and Mary, and the scene of him striking Arius became a popular subject in Eastern Orthodox icons and later artwork.
Another well-known miracle story, from the late Middle Ages, tells of a horrible famine during which a butcher murdered three children, chopped them up, and put their bodies in a barrel to cure them as if they were meat.
Nicholas discovered the crime and, by making the sign of the cross, brought the children back to life. Modern scholars see no historical value in this story, but it became extremely popular and was often depicted in medieval art. Over time, people began to associate Nicholas with children and with barrels. This helped make him the patron saint of children and, in some people’s minds, of brewers.
Another story about the famine in Myra around 311–312 tells of a ship loaded with wheat bound for Constantinople. Nicholas asked the sailors to unload some grain to help the starving people, but they refused at first, because they had to deliver a precise weight to the emperor.
Nicholas promised they would not lose anything by helping. When they finally agreed and gave a portion of the wheat, they later discovered that the total weight of the cargo had not changed. Meanwhile, the grain left in Myra fed the people for two years and provided seed for planting.
Traditional accounts agree on the outline of Nicholas’s life: he was born in Patara in Asia Minor, in a wealthy Greek Christian family, and later became bishop of Myra. Different sources give different names for his parents, and some say his uncle was the previous bishop of Myra and ordained Nicholas as a priest. When his parents died, Nicholas is said to have inherited their wealth and given it away to the poor.
The most famous example is the story of the three daughters, where he secretly gave money for dowries. In art, this scene is often shown with Nicholas wearing a hood or cowl, the three daughters in bed in their nightclothes, and sometimes a tree or cross-topped building nearby.
Some historians think this dowry story may have a real historical base because it was recorded relatively early and is not told about other saints in quite the same way. Others point out that a similar story is told about Apollonius of Tyana, but the differences—especially Nicholas’s aim to protect the women from prostitution—fit well with Christian values of the fourth century.
Nicholas is also said to have gone to the Holy Land, where the ship he was on nearly sank in a violent storm. He prayed and scolded the waves, and the storm suddenly calmed, which is why seafarers and travelers came to regard him as their special protector.
In Palestine, tradition says he lived for a time in a small underground cell or crypt near Bethlehem, the place where Jesus was born. A church dedicated to Saint Nicholas now stands there in Beit Jala, a Christian town that still honors him as its patron saint.
