OTD 6 December 343 St Nicholas of Myra died

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On 6 December 343, St. Nicholas of Myra died. This day is the feast day of
St. Nicholas in the Catholic Church.

There is little known of the real history of St. Nicholas and about his early life.
Though, he was born on 15 March 270.

It also is known that he made a pilgrimage to Palestine area and Egypt. After his
return he became bishop of Myra (nowadays in Turkey).

In 1087, a group of merchants from the Italian city Bari removed the major
bones of St. Nicholas without authorization to their hometown Bari.
Now they are enshrined in the wonderful Basilica di San Nicola.

There are many beautiful legends of St. Nicholas mostly about his charity.
In other stories he even protected a ship in the middle of a storm.

Nowadays he is the patron saint of:

- Children;
- Coopers;
- Sailors;
- Fishermen;
- Merchants;
- Brewers;
- Pharmacists;
- Archers;
- Pawnbrokers;
- Falsely repentant thieves.

Relic Shrine of St. Nicholas 


It is the patron saint of many countries, cities and regions inter alia:

- Aberdeen;
- Galway;
- Russia;
- Greece;
- Liverpool;
- Bari;
- Moscow;
- Amsterdam;
- Lorraine.

St. Nicholas relic shrine 


In 2018, I had the chance to visit the treasure room of the St. Nicholas Church
in my hometown Sint-Niklaas (Belgium).

St.Nicholas statue


There, a wonderful relic (probably a piece of one of his fingers) is kept in a
beautiful silver relic shrine.

St. Nicholas Statue 2


There also are wonderful statues of the patron saint of Sint-Niklaas.



St. Nicholas Statue


Before 6 December (from the end of November till 6 December) a lot of things
around St. Nicholas took place for the children in Sint-Niklaas.

It really is a nice period before Christmas.

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