St. Nicholas and the Eastern Church

Today (December 6) is the feast day of St. Nicholas. I have brief but fond memories of St. Nicholas day in grade school. Tradition is such that St. Nick leaves treats or gifts in a child's shoes if he or she leaves them out. At my school, we all got to take our shoes off and line them up in the hallway. (As a side note, we had to wear uniforms so anytime we were out of the normal dress code for any reason, even if it was one shoeless class, it was an amazing day) At the end of class, we had to go get our shoes and voila! St. Nicholas had come by with candy canes!

St. Nick actually visited our house this morning too... my husband found a candy cane in his shoe before work. Me, I found this in my lunch box:

 

It's always great to keep even small traditions alive. This is something we plan to continue and play up with our children someday!

Anyways, I read multiple blogs today about the real St. Nicholas. It's absolutely amazing to learn about a person that everyone has heard of, yet few people actually know who he was! Of course, the St. Nicholas of old eventually evolved into the modern-day Santa Claus, but the two couldn't have been more different. If you're interested in lots of details, you can read them here or here.

In short, St. Nicholas was born in a small town in Asia Minor in modern Turkey in the year 280 AD, and later became archbishop of another Asia Minor city, Myra. Before everyone started looking at him with their jolly, rosy Santa Claus glasses, he was arguably most remembered for punching someone.

The year is 325. The place is Nicaea, a small town near the Black Sea in what is now Turkey. Thousands of priests, 318 bishops, two papal lieutenants and the Roman emperor Constantine are gathered to face a looming church crisis…..

 

One of the churchmen rises to speak. Arius, from the Egyptian city of Alexandria, tells the gathering that Jesus was not divine. He was just a prophet. Suddenly, a second man is on his feet, an obscure, cantankerous bishop named Nicholas. He approaches Arius, fist raised menacingly. There are gasps. Would he dare? He would. Fist strikes face. Arius goes down. He will have a shiner. Nick, meanwhile, is set upon by holy men. His robes are torn off. He is thrown into a dungeon.

So much for jolly old St. Nicholas!

But hey, he was a true Christian defending Christ's Divinity!

In my searching for information on St. Nick, I came across a fact that I did not previously know. St. Nicholas was a saint through the Eastern Church... often called the Eastern Rite, but really the Eastern Catholic Church. This perplexed me a little. My initial thought was that the Eastern Church had broken off from the Roman Catholic Church in 1054 and that we were more or less separated since then, like we are from Protestants. So what started out as a day to learn about jolly old Saint Nicholas turned into me digging for information on Eastern and Western Churches.

What I found was great! I have had questions about the status of Eastern Churches, since they broke off long before Protestants did. I found this great page that explains the once-unified Christian church, the Catholic Church, that all Christians belonged to until the East-West schism of 1054. Eventually, over the next 900 years, many Eastern Churches became re-united with Rome. The core Catholic beliefs are the same, East and West recognize the pope as the Supreme Pontiff, but the liturgical style in the East most reflects the local culture and ancient practices.

The good, or bad, thing about the internet is that one page is full of links to other pages. Naturally, as I was thirsty for knowledge, I followed a lot of these links. I found a Q&A page from a Byzantine (Eastern) Church and another page about Byzantine Catholics, the Melkites, explaining the union with the western Roman Catholic Church. Basically, I can attend an Eastern Church, receive the Eucharist (because they, too, consecrate it into the actual Flesh and Blood of Jesus), and fulfill my "Sunday requirement" there.

As it was so beautifully stated on the American Catholic website, "All, East and West, belong to the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church."

 

 

Doing even a little bit of research in the history of a 2000 year old church can take you to many places, from Santa Claus, to St. Nicholas of Myra, to the East-West Schism, to my realizing that I can attend a Byzantine Church.

 

Just another day!

St. Nicholas, glorious Confessor of Christ,

assist us in thy loving kindness.