Editor’s note: diving back into our Christmas archives, The Catholic Register unearthed this gem from Dec. 2, 2001, written by former Editor/Publisher Bernard Daly. In this edited version, Daly tells us a little about the legend of St. Nicholas from his visit to San Nicola Basilica in Bari, Italy, and St. Nicholas’ tomb. Daly shares how the legend of St. Nick grew from his origins in what is now Europe and spread.

In the minds of children across Europe, he is Sinterklaas (Holland) or Mikulas (Hungary), and he brings them small presents on his feast day, Dec. 6. He does the same for Eastern Christian children who find his delights under their beds in Ukraine.

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He also makes his imaginary, gift-laden way to millions of homes on Christmas Eve: Santa Claus or St. Nick in North America, Pere Noel in France, Father Christmas in England, Grandfather Frost in Russia, and, in old Nordic folk tales, a magician who punishes naughty kids and rewards the good.

On the ground, however, his tomb is in the crypt under the massive 11th-century San Nicola Basilica in Bari on Italy’s southern Adriatic coast…

While scholars may question details of his life, Church tradition makes Nicholas one of the most popular saints — patron of Russia and Greece, of children, sailors, merchants, unwed girls and pawnbrokers, of Moscow and of Fribourg in Switzerland, and of thousands of churches, including one built in the sixth century by the Roman emperor Justinian I in Constantinople (now Istanbul)…

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Nicholas was Bishop of Myra, in Lycia, Anatolia, now southern Turkey, and died about 350. He was imprisoned during the Roman emperor Diocletian’s persecution of Christians and released under Constantine the Great. After his death Nicholas was buried at Myra. By the sixth century his tomb there was a popular shrine, until sailors (or merchants) from Bari removed his remains in 1087. His popularity then increased in Europe, and Bari became one of the most crowded of pilgrimage centres for both Western and Eastern Christians.

The late Ukrainian Metropolitan, Josyf Slipyj, used to recount that, according to a folk saying in Zasdrist, his native village, “If, God forbid, something happened to God, then St. Nicholas would become God.” And St. Nicholas almost always has a place on the icon screen in every Ukrainian church, in Canada and elsewhere.

The Troparion (or Proper) of the Ukrainian liturgy for his feast celebrates Nicholas as “ruler of the faith and image of gentleness” — a paradoxical emphasis of the two sides of his character. At the first ecumenical council in Nicea in 325, Nicholas is said to have slapped Arius for questioning Christ’s divinity. Regarding his gentleness and generosity, in turn, there are many legends of miracles he performed for the poor and unhappy.

One relates that he restored to life three children whose bodies had been chopped up and put in a barrel of brine. Also, he saved three daughters of a poor man from prostitution by tossing a bag of gold through the family’s window on three separate occasions, to provide a dowry to assure an honourable marriage for each girl — probably the legend that associates his feast day with gift giving and festivities.

One widespread custom in Europe was the ceremony of the Boy Bishop. A boy was “elected” bishop on Dec. 6 and reigned until Holy Innocents’ Day, Dec. 28.

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After the Reformation, Holland was one Protestant country that retained an active memory of Nicholas. Dutch colonists brought Sinterklaas to New Amsterdam (now New York) in the 17th century, and by the 19th century the figure of Santa Claus had emerged, which has reached the heights of today’s popular culture.

But Nicholas’ gift-giving tradition is not just for Christmas Eve. When the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in downtown New York was destroyed on Sept. 11 (the 9/11 terror attack on the United States in 2001 - editor), the mayor of Bari immediately sent $500,000 for its reconstruction....