The history of St. Nicholas is a story that truly shows how legends are made. The forerunner to today’s Santa Claus, St. Nicholas embodied all that was good.

The boy

• Born to wealthy parents in 270 AD.
• Born in the Roman province of Lycia, a Greek colony of Patera.
• Parents died when Nicholas was a teen, leaving him a fortune.
• Humble and generous, Nicholas heard of a poor family consisting of a father and his three daughters. So poor and without hope for his daughter’s futures, the man was ready to send his oldest daughter to the street for prostitution. In the dead of night Nicholas threw a bag of gold into the family’s window. The next morning the father was overjoyed at a stranger’s generosity. Nicholas proceeded to stealthily give each daughter a bag of gold, until, on the night of the third daughter’s gift, the father laid in wait. Embarrassed at being caught, Nicholas made the man promise not to tell anyone of his benefactor. Today, St. Nicholas is the patron saint of pawnbrokers, and the three gold balls of a pawnshop’s sign represent the three bags of gold he gave to the daughters.
• Nicholas gave up his fortune to charity.
• An ardent Christian, Nicholas began attending the local church in Myra and became a minister.
• He would rise early and go to the church to pray. The bishop of the region died. One morning while Nicholas prayed, an old minister came to him and told him he had a dream that the first person to enter the church that day (Nicholas) would be the new bishop.

The man

• The Roman Emperor Diocletian ordered all Christians to be sacrificed to the pagan gods in 303 AD. Nicholas led thousands against this persecution. Those who survived through all the years of torture were tagged saints or confessors. Nicholas was one.
• Nicholas served and healed his people for another thirty years.
• A true living legend, Nicholas died on December 6, 343 AD at the, then old age, of 73.

Miracles

• Patron saint of Sailors, Nicholas is said to have saved many seagoing men from watery deaths.
• On a famine struck island, a butcher killed three people to cure them for food. Nicholas found out and resurrected the bodies.
• Each year on December 6, the tomb of St. Nicholas weeps a watery liquid known as manna. It is said to possess extreme powers.