Saint for all ages

‘His clothes are drenched in brine, his beard drips with seawater, and his brow is covered in perspiration due to his continual efforts to reach sinking ships to save them from the angry waves.’ Such is the lively picture of St Nicholas recorded by an anthologist of popular Greek calendar customs, contrasting somewhat with the venerable stasis of his painted images in Orthodox churches.

Protecting sailors from shipwreck was and still is one of the saint’s primary occupations. Even today no Greek vessel would put to sea without his portrait on board. But over time he also became the patron saint of travellers in general, children, scholars, merchants, pawnbrokers, pirates, robbers, Russia and many towns and cities. One of the earliest miracles attributed to him was the saving of three Byzantine army officers from unjust execution. His intercession in judicial matters was accordingly sought both in this world and at the Judgment Seat in the next. Another was his secret gift of three bags of gold for the dowries of three young maidens, who otherwise would have been forced into prostitution. This led to his association with gift-giving, especially to children. The three bags of gold came to be stylised in Western art as three golden balls, providing pawnbrokers with their sign (St Nick also being invoked as a guarantor-witness of debts).

The St Nicholas who was to become probably the most ubiquitous single saint of the Middle Ages in both East and West was in reality a conflation of two Nicholases, both of whom had their origins in the region of Myra in south-western Asia Minor. One was a semi-mythical bishop alleged to have lived at the time of Constantine; the other, a miracle-working monk of the late 5th and 6th centuries.