Legacy of Nicholas rests on saintly character

Do you really care who the real St. Nicholas is? You should.

In a culture possessing heroes with superhuman physical powers (e.g., sports and movie stars), but devoid of unchanging virtue, Bishop Nicholas stands as a paragon of everything good and right, a fact sadly missing in his caricatures known as Santa Claus.

The enduring legacy of St. Nicholas rests on his steadfast godly character, not simply because he fills out a felt need in someone’s changing story, legend, or movie. Consider the life of the saint, not the Santa. He was born in the village of Patara (on the Mediterranean coast in modern-day southern Turkey) and served as bishop of the Church in nearby Myra; Nicholas does not reside at the North Pole or any frozen wasteland.

Nicholas was imprisoned for a decade under the Roman emperor Diocletian because of his confession of Christ Jesus; he never sat enclosed in the town mall awaiting photo opportunities with children.

At the First Worldwide Christian Council in Nicea (325 A.D.), Bishop Nicholas defended the faith that Jesus Christ is both fully God and man; he doesn’t keep dossiers of children’s lives to reward or punish their behavior, or hang out with Frosty and the Grinch.

Finally, St. Nicholas is known for working miracles and his acts of love for the poor and oppressed; he does not possess magical powers over elves and reindeer. Late in World War II in the Ukraine, two or three Russian soldiers were lost in the snowy night. They saw the lights of a small house ahead and hastened toward it. The owner of the house welcomed the men, gave the soldiers food, and told them to spend the night in his warm abode. The soldiers woke up the next morning lying in the open air. The house was gone. Finding their way into the nearest town, the puzzled men entered a church. When they saw an icon of St. Nicholas, they suddenly recognized him as the man who saved them from the cold the night before. This is the true account of the saint, not any kind of Santa.

How could the life of such a man of God, who is still active in the lives of the faithful, be morphed into a cartoon image or blip on a fictitious internet tracking site? The answer lies in our willingness to accept the mental transformation of an actual, bona fide, holy man into a figment of self-styled imagination.

Yet the answer also invites us to simply acknowledge the saint (and His Lord and God, Jesus Christ) without all the Santa hype. The season before Christmas (known as Advent, preparing for Christ’s arrival in the flesh) still popularly elicits feelings of joy, generosity, and religious obligation, all virtues embodied in the person of Holy Bishop Nicholas. He is forever linked with the season and the feast of Christ’s birth as one of our savior’s foremost images of devotion.

Thus we rightly look to the saint (not the Santa) to lead us ever more fully into the mysteries of the kingdom of Christ for which he was willing to suffer, to work, to believe and to rejoice.

XThe Rev. Jonathan H. Cholcher is the pastor at St. John the Baptist Orthodox Church in Warren.