- Our Father among the Saints Nicholas the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Myra (345)
- Our beloved holy Father Nicholas is, along with St George (and second to the All-holy
Theotokos), probably the best-loved Saint of the Church. His numberless miracles through the
ages, on behalf of the countless Christians who have called on him, cannot be told.
- He was born in Lycia (in Asia Minor) around the end of the third
century, to pious
Christian parents. His love of virtue, and his zeal for observing the
canons of the Church, were evident from his infancy, when he would
abstain from his mother's breast every Wednesday and Friday until the
evening. From early youth he was inclined to solitude and silence; in
fact, not a single written or spoken word of the Saint has come down to
us. Though ordained a priest by his uncle, Archbishop Nicholas, he
attempted to withdraw to a hermit's life in the Holy Land; but he was
told by revelation that he was to return home to serve the Church
publicly and be the salvation of many souls.
-
When his parents died, he gave away all of his inheritance to the
needy, and thereafter
almsgiving was his greatest glory. He always took particular care that
his charity be done in
secret. Perhaps the most famous story of his open-handedness concerns a
debt-ridden man who
had no money to provide dowries for his daughters, or even to support
them, and in despair had
resolved to give them into prostitution. On three successive nights the
Saint threw a bag of gold into the window of the man's house, saving
him and his daughters from sin and hopelessness. The man searched
relentlessly to find and thank his benefactor; when at last he
discovered that it was Nicholas, the Saint made him promise not to
reveal the good deed until after he had died.
-
God honored his faithfulness by granting him unparalleled gifts of
healing and
wonderworking. Several times he calmed storms by his prayers and saved
the ship that he was
sailing in. Through the centuries he has often done the same for sailors
who call out to him, and is considered the patron of sailors and all
who go to sea.
-
He was elected Bishop of Myra not long before the great
persecutions under Diocletian
and Maximian (c. 305), and was put in prison, from which he continued to
encourage his flock in
the Faith. When the Arian heresy wracked the Church not long after
Constantine came to the
throne, St Nicholas was one of the 318 Bishops who gathered in Nicea in
325. There he was so
incensed at the blasphemies of Arius that he struck him on the face.
This put the other bishops in a quandary, since the canons require that
any hierarch who strikes anyone must be deposed. Sadly, they prepared
to depose the holy Nicholas; but in the night the Lord Jesus and the
most Holy Theotokos appeared to them, telling them that the Saint had
acted solely out of love for Truth, not from hatred or passion, and that
they should not act against him.
-
While still in the flesh, he sometimes miraculously appeared in
distant places to save the
lives of the faithful. He once saved the city of Myra from famine by
appearing to the captain of a ship full of grain, telling him to take
his cargo to the city. He appeared in a dream to Constantine to
intercede for the lives of three Roman officers who had been falsely
condemned; the three grateful soldiers later became monks.
-
The holy bishop reposed in peace around 345. His holy relics were
placed in a church
built in his honor in Myra, where they were venerated by throngs of
pilgrims every year. In 1087, after Myra was conquered by the Saracens,
the Saint's relics were translated to Bari in southern Italy, where
they are venerated today. Every year, quantities of fragrant myrrh are
gathered from the casket containing his holy relics.
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source:http://www.abbamoses.com
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