History: Nicholas was the only son of wealthy Christian parents of Greek descent named Epiphanus and Johana in Patara, Lycia in the Fourth Century AD. After his parents died from an epidemic, he was taken in by his uncle who was Bishop of Patara. He was raised to be very religious at the monastery which his uncle had founded and as an adult became the Bishop of Myra in what is now modern Turkey.
Nicholas used his family wealth to spread acts of kindness and good will. He was particularly fond of children, nursing three back to life from a deathly illness. He rescued three sailors from a storm off the coast (St. Nicholas associated with a scent of fish and why certain areas decorate fishing boat models with lights) and helped the three unfortunate daughters of a poor nobleman. The three daughters wanted to marry three brothers of nobility, but their father did not have the money for their dowry. A recluse by nature, Nicholas anonymously dropped a bag of gold one night at a time for each daughter, but by the third night, the father rushed to discover who his mysterious benefactor was. Nicholas begged the father to conceal his identity, but one of the daughters learned the secret and spread the story. Thereafter, whenever someone received an unexpected gift, they thanked Nicholas.
In 325 AD, Roman Emperor Constantine heard of the extreme generosity of Nicholas and asked to meet him, possibly at the Council of Nicaea in modern Iznik which had convened to discern the nature of Jesus Christ. (Some sources claim Nicholas was abducted by Emperor Diocletian who had only ruled the Roman Empire from 284 to 305 AD.) Since Constantine was one of the first of the Roman Emperors to embrace Christianity, it is likely the encounter was under amicable terms.
The circumstances of Nicholas’s death are unrevealed, but it is known the Holy Roman Emperor venerated him as a saint. He was buried in Myra, but in 1071, during the invasion of the Seljuk Turks to the area, St. Nicholas appeared in a vision to the three sailors to preserve them from the Muslim conquest. Over the objections of the Orthodox monks, the sailors had St. Nicholas’s earthly remains reinterred from their burial church in Myra to their native port in Bari, Apulia (now part of Italy). Reputedly, some of the bones of St. Nicholas were taken by pilgrims to a church in Nikolausburg, Germany and to the church of St. Nicholas in Venice, but this is unconfirmed. In the Tenth Century, Emperor Vladimir of Russia hearing of the great deeds of St. Nicholas declared him the patron saint of Russia.