The True Saint Nicholas by William J. Bennett

Author:William J. Bennett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Howard Books
Published: 2009-10-27T00:00:00+00:00

BARI SOON HAD A rival center of devotion to Nicholas. Tradition says that a Crusader named Aubert from Lorraine, France, passed through Bari around the year 1098 on his way home from the Holy Land. He brought home one of Nicholas’s finger bones and placed it in a chapel in a spot known as Port on the bank of the river Meurthe, in northeastern France.

The shrine became a popular destination for pilgrims, especially for merchants and boatmen traveling the river. People suffering from illness made their way to Saint-Nicolas-de-Port, as the place came to be known, in hopes of being healed. Since Nicholas had once been a prisoner, those who had escaped prison or been released from bondage also came to give thanks. They often left their chains hanging on the church’s pillars as signs of gratitude.

Legend says that during the thirteenth century, a knight named Cuno de Réchicourt was captured in the Holy Land during a crusade. He remained imprisoned for four years, fastened to his cell walls by chains welded to an iron collar. Before he went to sleep on December 5, the eve of Nicholas’s feast day, he prayed in the name of the saint for deliverance. His jailor mocked him, calling Nicholas a fraud, but when the knight woke, he found himself before the church of Saint-Nicolas-de-Port in France, still wearing the heavy chains.

In gratitude for his freedom, the knight gave land to the church and established an annual torchlight procession on St. Nicholas Eve. Port, once a lowly hamlet, grew into one of the wealthiest towns in Lorraine. Pilgrims rich and poor streamed to Saint-Nicolas-de-Port, including rulers such as Charles IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, and King Henry IV of England. Joan of Arc visited in 1429 to ask Nicholas to aid in her quest to drive the English out of her homeland.

The reputation of the saint traveled farther still. The Vikings dedicated a cathedral to him in Greenland. On December 6, 1492, Christopher Columbus dropped anchor off the northwestern coast of what is now Haiti and gave the name St. Nicholas Mole to a port he found there. He also bestowed Nicholas’s name on a nearby cape and on a channel off the northwestern coast of Cuba. Spaniards following in his wake named a settlement St. Nicholas Ferry in the area that is now Jacksonville, Florida.

Saint Nicholas had reached the New World.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.