December 6: The
Feast of St. Nicholas - We have come to know
this 4th century
bishop as the great bearded fellow of Santa Claus. But he was a bishop in the
early church, reportedly one of the bishops at the council at Nicaea when they
formulated the Nicene Creed we say to this day. He is not only the patron saint
of children, but also of sailors, merchants, archers, thieves, pawnbrokers, and students in various countries in the Balkans and Eastern Europe (Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech
Republic, Georgia, Greece, Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania,
Russia, Serbia, Slovakia), as well as in parts of Western Europe (Belgium,
France, Netherlands, Portugal). He is also the patron saint of Aberdeen,
Amsterdam, Fribourg, Huguenots, and Liverpool. The Christian Church certainly has some odd
bedfellows. Ain’t it grand?
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