Birth & Early Life
Nicholas was born around AD 270 in the seaport city of Patara in Lycia, on the southern coast of Asia Minor in what is now Turkey.
His parents, Theophanes and Nonna, were devout Christians who had long been childless. Tradition holds that they vowed to dedicate their son to God, and the very day of his birth was marked as a sign of his future glory: his mother was healed of a long illness, and the infant Nicholas stood upright in the baptismal font for three hours, honoring the Holy Trinity.
From his earliest years, Nicholas showed a love of fasting and prayer that astonished those around him. According to the tradition preserved by the Church, on Wednesdays and Fridays the infant would not nurse from his mother until after evening prayers, observing the canonical fast even in the cradle.
His parents died in an epidemic while he was still young. Nicholas was raised by his uncle, also named Nicholas, who was the bishop of Patara. The elder Nicholas tonsured his nephew as a reader and later ordained him a priest, recognizing in the young man an unusual fitness for the sacred ministry.
The Three Daughters
Among the most beloved stories of St. Nicholas comes from his early priesthood, when he inherited his parents' considerable wealth. Rather than keeping it, he regarded himself as a steward of goods that belonged to the poor, and gave it away in secret.
In Patara there lived a man who had fallen into ruin. He had three daughters, but no money for their dowries. Without dowries, they could not be married, and the father in his desperation was preparing to give them up to prostitution to survive.
Nicholas heard of the family's plight. On three separate nights, he secretly tossed a bag of gold through the window of their home, providing each daughter in turn with a marriage portion. According to one telling, on the third night the father, determined to discover his benefactor, kept watch and discovered the saint. Nicholas made him promise to tell no one as long as he lived.
Some accounts say the bags fell into stockings hung by the fire to dry, which is why, centuries later, children would hang stockings on the night of his feast in hope of finding small gifts. From this single act of secret charity grew every modern tradition of Christmas gift-giving, and the figure of Santa Claus himself, whose name comes from the Dutch Sinterklaas, a corruption of "Saint Nikolaos."
Bishop of Myra
After making pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Nicholas yearned for a quiet life of contemplation. He entered a monastery his uncle had founded, called Holy Sion, intending to spend his days in prayer. But the Lord made known to him that this was not where he was to bear fruit.
The Archbishop of Myra had recently died. The bishops gathered to choose a successor were divided. One night, an elder among them received a vision: the next man to enter the church for morning prayers, whose name was Nicholas, was to be the new archbishop. The next morning, Nicholas walked through the doors at the appointed time, and the bishops, recognizing the sign, consecrated him as Archbishop of Myra.
As bishop, Nicholas became known for his fierce defense of the innocent, his ceaseless almsgiving, and his pastoral care. He intervened personally to save three soldiers from unjust execution, staying the executioner's hand. He fed his city through famine by miraculously increasing the cargo of a passing grain ship. He calmed storms at sea by his prayers, both in life and after death, which is why he became the patron of all who travel by water.
The Council of Nicaea
In AD 325, Emperor Constantine summoned more than 300 bishops to the city of Nicaea for the first Ecumenical Council of the Christian Church. Nicholas was among them.
The crisis before the Council was the teaching of Arius, a priest from Alexandria who claimed that Jesus Christ was not truly God, but a created being, lesser than the Father. If Arius was right, the entire Christian faith collapsed: there could be no salvation, no real incarnation, no Eucharist, no communion with God.
Tradition tells us that during one of Arius's lengthy defenses of his teaching, Nicholas grew so distressed at hearing the divinity of Christ denied that he stood, crossed the floor of the assembly, and struck Arius on the face. The bishops were shocked. To strike another man in the imperial presence was a serious offense, and Nicholas was stripped of his episcopal vestments, chained, and confined to a cell.
The Council ultimately rejected Arius's teaching and produced the Nicene Creed, which Orthodox Christians still recite at every Divine Liturgy. The council's verdict matched what Nicholas had defended with such passion: that the Son is "of one essence with the Father," truly and fully God.
Vision in Prison
The night Nicholas spent in his cell, he was deeply ashamed of his loss of self-control. He prayed for forgiveness, though he did not waver in his conviction that the truth he had defended was right.
That same night, according to tradition, Christ and the Theotokos appeared to him. "Why are you in prison, Nicholas?" the Lord asked. "Because of my love for you," he replied. The Lord placed a Book of the Gospels into his hands, and the Theotokos draped him with an omophorion, the bishop's stole. Nicholas was once again clothed as a bishop, and at peace.
When the jailer came in the morning, he found the chains lying loose on the floor and Nicholas sitting quietly, reading the Scriptures, dressed in episcopal vestments. The bishops, hearing of the vision, restored him to his see. He returned to the Council and to his diocese in Myra, vindicated.
Miracles & Wonderworking
The Greek title thaumatourgos, "wonderworker," is given to Nicholas not as a metaphor but as a description. The accounts of his miracles, both during his life and after his repose, fill volumes.
He saved sailors caught in storms in the Aegean. He delivered prisoners unjustly condemned. He fed the hungry and gave sight to the blind. He appeared in dreams to emperors and merchants and beggars to arrange providential help for those in need. He did not stop after his death. The faithful in every century have testified to his intercession in their lives, and the Church hymns him as "a speedy helper, a willing intercessor, a swift defender."
One of the most beautiful descriptions comes from an ancient Life of the saint:
He worked many glorious miracles both on land and on sea, aiding those downtrodden in misfortune and rescuing the drowning, raising up others from corruption and bringing them home, liberating from chains and imprisonment, averting felling by the sword and freeing from death, and granting healing to many: sight to the blind, walking to the lame, hearing to the deaf, and speech to the mute. From the ancient Life of St. Nicholas
Repose & Relics
Saint Nicholas fell asleep in the Lord on December 6, AD 343, in his city of Myra, having reached old age in unceasing labor for his flock. His body was placed in the cathedral church of Myra, and almost immediately the relics began to flow with fragrant myrrh, which healed those who anointed themselves with it. This miraculous flow of myrrh continues to this day.
For more than seven centuries his relics rested in Myra. In 1087, after Myra had fallen to Saracen invasions, a group of merchants from the Italian city of Bari sailed to Lycia and removed most of the relics, bringing them home to Bari, where a great basilica was built to house them. The remaining bones were taken to Venice in 1100. The myrrh continues to flow from his tomb in Bari to this day, and is collected each year on his feast.
The transfer of his relics to Bari is itself commemorated as a feast in the Russian Orthodox tradition.
Feast Days
The Orthodox Church remembers Saint Nicholas on three days each year:
December 6 · His Repose
The principal feast of the saint, marking the day of his blessed falling asleep in the Lord. Observed throughout the Orthodox world. In many traditions, children receive small gifts on the eve of this day, in memory of his secret charity.
May 9 · Translation of the Relics
Commemorates the transfer of his relics from Myra to Bari in 1087. Especially beloved in the Russian Orthodox tradition, which marked the establishment of this feast soon after the event.
July 29 · His Nativity
The Russian Orthodox Church also celebrates the day of his birth.
Why He Is Our Patron
When this parish was established in Joliet, the founders chose Saint Nicholas to watch over us. The choice was not accidental.
Saint Nicholas is the patron of so many: of sailors, of children, of merchants, of students, of the falsely accused, of the poor, of entire nations. He is the patron of Greece, of Russia, of countless cities and dioceses across the world. There are more churches dedicated to him than to any other saint in Christian history.
But what we honor in him at this parish is not simply that he was famous, or that he worked miracles. We honor him because he is a model of what a Christian life looks like in practice: faithful in defense of the truth, generous in secret, kind to the powerless, merciful to the suffering, fearless when standing for Christ, and ready, when the chance came, to ask forgiveness and begin again.
He is a saint who hears prayers. The faithful of this parish, like faithful in every century, ask his intercession in their daily struggles. He has not failed them.
Through the prayers of our holy father Nicholas, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us.