Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty and Wikimedia Commons
This last week marked the celebration of the Saint’s Day of Nicholas of Myra, a man better known to most of us as Father Christmas or Santa. The fourth century bishop is arguably the most famous saint in the world. Whether Christian or not, his mythic persona preoccupies the kindergarten crowd (and their parents) this time of year, provides part time employment at malls, and made reindeers a thing. But who is the man behind the myth? And did he—as Christian lore suggests, assault a heretic at the Council of Nicaea?
The “real” Saint Nick (if we can even consider them to be the same person) was Nicholas of Myra a fourth century Christian minister born in the port town of Patara on the south coast of modern-day Turkey. He grew up wealthy, which gave him a lot of local visibility and so, as a young man of means, he left to tour the Holy Land and spread his wings in anonymity. Life in the big city suited him and so he elected to relocate from his hometown to the larger city of Myra, where a series of miraculous events led to his installation—at a prodigiously young age—as the bishop.
The strangest or at least the most aggressive tradition associated with St. Nicholas has to do with his presence at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. Nicaea is one of the most important Church Councils in Christian history. It was here that the Nicene Creed, the statement of faith spoken or sung on Sundays in Western Christian traditions, was adopted. A somewhat updated version is accepted by most denominations of Christianity as the only authoritative non-biblical doctrinal statement. In other words, it was a big deal.