Long before Coca Cola advertising gave him a nice red and white hat, Father Christmas was actually a real Catholic Saint.
St Nicholas, or Nikolaos as he would have pronounced his name, was the the priest of Myra a town now in southern Turkey from 280-352AD.
The most famous story tells of him saving the daughters of a destitute nobleman in Patara from prostitution. Each night, before the nobleman is about to sell one of his daughters into prostitution, St Nick creeps up and throws a bag of gold into the house at midnight.
This happens three times, with three bags of St Nicholas’ gold being used to save three daughters from prostitution. This story sets the basis for much of the later Santa legend: “an arrival at night, bearing secret gifts to the young.”
He died on 6 December and was placed in a sarcophagus in Byzantine Lycia around 352AD. Soon after his death, a church was built in Myra in his honour.
The Basilica of St. Nicholas is one of the best preserved Early Byzantine churches in existence. The initial structure was an ancient East Roman basilica, constructed around AD 520, funded or supported by Emperor Justinian.
Myra was earlier a centre for Poseidon worship, and St Nicholas would subsequently take on many of the attributes of Poseidon, becoming a patron saint for sailors and the “deliverer of pilgrims to the Holy Land by Sea.”
His feast day, December 6th, is also speculated to have coincided with ancient pre-Christian festivals honoring Poseidon.
Bizzarely, the modern Santa myth would also adopt many aspects of the Norse cult of Odin.
-Sam Dalrymple.
A great historian with a great substack if anyone is interested.
