St Nick, the original Santa Claus came from Myra Turkey
DO you believe in Mikulás, we ask the children next door, and what would you like him to bring you? Matyi, aged five, wants coloring pencils. "I would like a nice warm pair of lined slippers," says his sister Lenke, three and a half years old, and not yet jaded by all the commercialized versions of the legendary Saint Nick, on display in supermarkets, shopping centers, and other public places. According to Christian tradition, Mikulás (Szent Miklós, or St Nicholas) comes during the night of Dec 5, on the vigil of his Feast Day, Dec 6, leaving candies and small gifts. The children (and often adults who enjoy this charming custom) go to sleep with great anticipation, and cannot wait till morning to see what the saintly Mikulás has left for them. This tradition has subsisted throughout the Christian world for 17 centuries. Mikulás has gone through transformations - the Reformation tried to do away with saints - and secularizations by creating versions such as Santa Claus and Father Winter. "During communism, religious practice was persecuted, so Mikulás was officially eradicated and was replaced with Tél Apó (Father Winter)," says Matyi's and Lenke's grandmother, Mrs Sarolta Szentkláray, who chants a song she was taught in the State school.
Whether they are lucky enough to have a latter-day Mikulás come to their home, or if they live in the city, where the commercialized version is now a hybrid of the traditional bishop and his successive Protestant or atheistic versions, children and adults are thrilled to go through the ritual of putting their shoes or boots, cleaned and shined, out on their window sills on the evening of Dec 5. In Europe, the good Bishop St Nicholas is enjoying an unprecedented revival, while the non-denominational figure of Santa Claus still persists in the United States and Canada. Santa's prototype is, of course, St Nicholas, the fourth century bishop of the Christian city of Myra, now Demre, in southern Turkey, whose acts of charity to the needy made him the symbol of selfless giving.
In Italy, St Nicholas is also known as San Nicola di Bari. The Reformation did away with such "trappings of Catholicism," including the veneration of Saints. However, in Protestant countries, such as the Netherlands, St Nicholas also prevailed, the occasion to reward children with small gifts, and bring joy to the little ones.
Besides being the archetype of charity, Nicholas was revered as the patron saint of marriage, and motherhood; he was also the patron of wheat, oil, and wine merchants, bakers, weavers, lawyers, pharmacists, fishermen, bridge-builders, prisoners, pilgrims, students, guilds and other societies, based on incidents in his life as related in the 15th century Legenda Aurea and the Hungarian Érdy Codex. Saxon merchants brought the cult of Nicholas from Germany and the Low Countries to the Carpathian Basin, and to Hungary in the 11th century.
The principal churches established by the Árpád Dynasty in Esztergom, Sárospatak, Nagyszombat (now Trnava, Slovakia), are dedicated to Miklós. The names of countless towns established in the Middle Ages testify to the widespread cult of St Nicholas. Benedictine Abbeys founded at the time, and named for St Nicholas, are nearly always located on the banks of streams. Nicholas was born in 280 and died in 350AD.
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