THE
TRUE STORY OF SANTA CLAUS
Some people dont want to look too closely at Santa Claus, for fear
hell melt away like a snowflake.
But fear not Santa does exist...and he is Greek.
His name is Aghios Nikolaos and he was bishop of Myra.
According to the Encyclopedia Britanica, Santa Claus started with
a real person, Saint Nicholas, a saint from the fourth century:
According to tradition, he was born in the ancient Greek Roman
seaport city of Patara, in Lycia, Asia Minor (it belongs to Turkey
nowadays) and, when young, he traveled to Palestine and Egypt. He
became bishop of Myra soon after returning to Lycia. He was
imprisoned during the Roman emperor Diocletian's persecution of
Christians but was released under the rule of Byzantine Emperor
Constantine the Great and attended the first Council (325) of
Nicaea. After his death he was buried in his church at Myra, and
by the sixth century his shrine there had become well known. In
1087, Italian sailors or merchants stole his alleged remains from
Myra and took them to Bari, Italy; this removal greatly increased
the saint's popularity in Europe, and Bari became one of the most
crowded of all pilgrimage centres. Nicholas' relics remain
enshrined in the 11th-century basilica of San Nicola, Bari.
Nicholas' reputation for generosity and kindness gave rise to
legends of miracles he performed for the poor and unhappy. He was
reputed to have given marriage dowries of gold to three girls whom
poverty would otherwise have forced into lives of prostitution,
and he restored to life three children who had been chopped up by
a butcher and put in a brine tub. In the Middle Ages, devotion to
Nicholas extended to all parts of Europe. He became the patron
saint of Russia and Greece; of charitable fraternities and guilds;
of children, sailors, unmarried girls, merchants, and pawnbrokers;
and of such cities as Fribourg, Switz., and Moscow. Thousands of
European churches were dedicated
to him, one as early as the sixth century, built by the Byzantine
emperor Justinian I, at Constantinople (now Istanbul). Nicholas'
miracles were a favourite subject for medieval artists and
liturgical plays, and his traditional feast day was the occasion
for the ceremonies of the Boy Bishop, a widespread European custom
in which a boy was elected bishop and reigned until Holy
Innocents' Day (December 28).
After the Reformation, Nicholas' cult disappeared in all the
Protestant countries of Europe except Holland, where his legend
persisted as Sinterklaas (a Dutch variant of the name Saint
Nicholas). Dutch colonists took this tradition with them to New
Amsterdam (now New York City) in the American colonies in the 17th
century. Sinterklaas was adopted by the country's English-speaking
majority under the name Santa Claus, and his legend of a kindly
old man was united with old Nordic folktales of a magician who
punished naughty children and rewarded good children with
presents.
His gift-giving role in Christmas rites probably follows from his
fame as the friend of children. The story also tells that he used
to give anonymous donations of gold coins to persons in need. His
cult spread in Europe and Christmas presents were distributed on
December 6th when the celebration of St. Nicholas took place. In
many countries, this day is still the day of Christmas
gift-giving.
In the present day, St. Nikolaos the
Wonderworker of Myra is called upon to preside in spirit over the
Christian Orthodox meetings seeking to unify the churches.
It is amazing but true that the common, popular view of Santa that
we all have today, along with all the crazy things around Santa
like the sleigh, the reindeer and the chimney, all came largely
from two publishing events that occurred in the 1800s and one
advertising campaign in this century. Clement Moore wrote
"The Night Before Christmas" in 1822 for his family. It
was picked up by a newspaper, then reprinted in magazines and it
spread like wildfire. Moore admitted authorship in 1838. If you
read the poem you will find that he names the reindeer, invents
the sleigh, comes up with the chimney and the bag of toys, etc.
Nearly everyone in America has been able to recognize or recite
this poem since the 1830s.
Then, between 1863 and 1886, Harper's Weekly (a popular magazine
of the time) ran a series of engravings by Thomas Nast. From these
images come the concepts of Santa's workshop, Santa reading
letters, Santa checking his list and so on. Coca-Cola also played
a role in the Santa image by running a set of paintings by Haddon
Sundblom in its ads between 1931 to 1964.
The red and white suit came, actually, from the original Saint
Nicholas. Those colours were the colours of the traditional
bishop's robes.
From gift giving to red clothes, Nikolaos of
Myra was a model for the modern Santa Claus.
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