The Real Saint Nicholas

In our last issue we mentioned that Ukraine this Christmas season will be celebrating with "Sviatii Mykola" - the Ukrainian spelling of "Saint Nicholas." This saint bears little resemblance to "Santa Claus" whose name is derived from this saint, but whose character is a rotund, jolly old fellow surrounded by reindeer and elves. The Real Saint Nicholas rescued three young women whose father was about to sell them to keep himself from abject poverty. St. Nicholas secretly threw a bag of gold coins through their window so the father could provide a dowry for marrying off his daughters honorably. Nicholas, born into a noble family, gave away his inheritance to the poor, and it is from these acts of generosity that we have the tradition of gift-giving at Christmas.

So the picture of a nice, jolly old man doesn't correspond at all to the real Saint Nicholas: he was made Archbishop of Myra and, according to the article St Nicholas the Wonderworker and Archbishop of Myra in Lycia, he destroyed idols and punched out the heretic Arius -

"Despite his great gentleness of spirit and purity of heart, St. Nicholas was a zealous and ardent warrior of the Church of Christ. Fighting evil spirits, the saint made the rounds of the pagan temples and shrines in the city of Myra and its surroundings, shattering the idols and turning the temples to dust.

"In the year 325 St. Nicholas was a participant in the First Ecumenical Council. This Council proclaimed the Nicene Symbol of Faith, and he stood up against the heretic Arius with the likes of Sts. Sylvester the Bishop of Rome (January 2), Alexander of Alexandria (May 29), Spyridon of Trimythontos (December 12) and other Fathers of the Council.

St Nicholas, fired with zeal for the Lord, assailed the heretic Arius with his words, and also struck him upon the face. For this reason, he was deprived of the emblems of his episcopal rank and placed under guard. But several of the holy Fathers had the same vision, seeing the Lord Himself and the Mother of God returning to him the Gospel and omophorion. The Fathers of the Council agreed that the audacity of the saint was pleasing to God, and restored the saint to the office of bishop."

We modern Christians might find such actions "intolerant," but perhaps we need to take a similar firm stand for the truth of the Gospel of Christ. The heretic Arius preached the doctrine that Jesus Christ was not fully the pre-eternal Son of God, but rather that Jesus was born as a man and later became god-like. The problem here is that if Jesus was not fully God from all eternity, then we cannot be saved. Only God can save us. A century or so after Arius was banished to the Arabian penninsula, Mohammed developed this doctrine into a new religion: Islam. It is a fundamental doctrine of Islam that "God is one, and has no son," echoing the heresy of Arianism, that Jesus was just a good man who became god-like, or "a prophet" as Islam teaches.

It is also the teaching of modern secular humanists that Jesus, if they believe He existed at all, was just a great moral teacher. This brings God down to our level, or rather it brings man up to God's level: the modern, autonomous individual has the right to declare that truth and morality are whatever he thinks is true and moral at the moment. In other words, by bringing God down to our level, making Christ into a mere man, they make themselves into God. Even several semi-Christian denominations today preach and teach such heresies. We need more zealous preachers like St. Nicholas today to combat these heresies!

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 06 Dec. 2014.)