ST. NICHOLAS ORTHODOX CHURCH SOUTHBRIDGE, MA
Saint Nicholas, the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Myra in Lycia is famed as a great saint pleasing unto God. He was born in the city of Patara in the region of Lycia (on the south coast of the Asia Minor peninsula), and was the only son of pious parents Theophanes and Nonna, who had vowed to dedicate him to God.
As the fruit of the prayer of his childless parents, the infant Nicholas from the very day of his birth revealed to people the light of his future glory as a wonderworker. His mother, Nonna, after giving birth was immediately healed from illness. The newborn infant, while still in the baptismal font, stood on his feet three hours, without support from anyone, thereby honoring the Most Holy Trinity. St Nicholas from his infancy began a life of fasting, and on Wednesdays and Fridays he would not accept milk from his mother until after his parents had finished their evening prayers.
From his childhood Nicholas thrived on the study of Divine Scripture; by day he would not leave church, and by night he prayed and read books, making himself a worthy dwelling place for the Holy Spirit. Bishop Nicholas of Patara rejoiced at the spiritual success and deep piety of his nephew. He ordained him a reader, and then elevated Nicholas to the priesthood, making him his assistant and entrusting him to instruct the flock.
In serving the Lord the youth was fervent of spirit, and in his proficiency with questions of faith he was like an Elder, who aroused the wonder and deep respect of believers. Constantly at work and vivacious, in unceasing prayer, the priest Nicholas displayed great kind-heartedness towards the flock, and towards the afflicted who came to him for help, and he distributed all his inheritance to the poor.
There was a certain formerly rich inhabitant of Patara, whom St Nicholas saved from great sin. The man had three grown daughters, and in desparation he planned to sell their bodies so they would have money for food. The saint, learning of the man's poverty and of his wicked intention, secretly visited him one night and threw a sack of gold through the window. With the money the man arranged an honorable marriage for his daughter. St Nicholas also provided gold for the other daughters, thereby saving the family from falling into spiritual destruction. In bestowing charity, St Nicholas always strove to do this secretly and to conceal his good deeds.
The Bishop of Patara decided to go on pilgrimage to the holy places at Jerusalem, and entrusted the guidance of his flock to St Nicholas, who fulfilled this obedience carefully and with love. When the bishop returned, Nicholas asked his blessing for a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Along the way the saint predicted a storm would arise and threaten the ship. St Nicholas saw the devil get on the ship, intending to sink it and kill all the passengers. At the entreaty of the despairing pilgrims, he calmed the waves of the sea by his prayers. Through his prayer a certain sailor of the ship, who had fallen from the mast and was mortally injured was also restored to health.
When he reached the ancient city of Jerusalem and came to Golgotha, St Nicholas gave thanks to the Savior. He went to all the holy places, worshiping at each one. One night on Mount Sion, the closed doors of the church opened by themselves for the great pilgrim. Going round the holy places connected with the earthly service of the Son of God, St Nicholas decided to withdraw into the desert, but he was stopped by a divine voice urging him to return to his native country. He returned to Lycia, and yearning for a life of quietude, the saint entered into the brotherhood of a monastery named Holy Sion, which had been founded by his uncle. But the Lord again indicated another path for him, "Nicholas, this is not the vineyard where you shall bear fruit for Me. Return to the world, and glorify My Name there." So he left Patara and went to Myra in Lycia.
Upon the death of Archbishop John, Nicholas was chosen as Bishop of Myra after one of the bishops of the Council said that a new archbishop should be revealed by God, not chosen by men. One of the elder bishops had a vision of a radiant Man, Who told him that the one who came to the church that night and was first to enter should be made archbishop. He would be named Nicholas. The bishop went to the church at night to await Nicholas. The saint, always the first to arrive at church, was stopped by the bishop. "What is your name, child?" he asked. God's chosen one replied, "My name is Nicholas, Master, and I am your servant."
After his consecration as archbishop, St Nicholas remained a great ascetic, appearing to his flock as an image of gentleness, kindness and love for people. This was particularly precious for the Lycian Church during the persecution of Christians under the emperor Diocletian (284-305). Bishop Nicholas, locked up in prison together with other Christians for refusing to worship idols, sustained them and exhorted them to endure the fetters, punishment and torture. The Lord preserved him unharmed. Upon the accession of St Constantine (May 21) as emperor, St Nicholas was restored to his flock, which joyfully received their guide and intercessor.
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 Nicean 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.
Having returned to his own diocese, the saint brought it peace and blessings, sowing the word of Truth, uprooting heresy, nourishing his flock with sound doctrine, and also providing food for their bodies.
Even during his life the saint worked many miracles. One of the greatest was the deliverance from death of three men unjustly condemned by the Governor, who had been bribed. The saint boldly went up to the executioner and took his sword, already suspended over the heads of the condemned. The Governor, denounced by St Nicholas for his wrong doing, repented and begged for forgiveness.
Witnessing this remarkable event were three military officers, who were sent to Phrygia by the emperor Constantine to put down a rebellion. They did not suspect that soon they would also be compelled to seek the intercession of St Nicholas. Evil men slandered them before the emperor, and the officers were sentenced to death. Appearing to St Constantine in a dream, St Nicholas called on him to overturn the unjust sentence of the military officers.
He worked many other miracles, and struggled many long years at his labor. Through the prayers of the saint, the city of Myra was rescued from a terrible famine. He appeared to a certain Italian merchant and left him three gold pieces as a pledge of payment. He requested him to sail to Myra and deliver grain there. More than once, the saint saved those drowning in the sea, and provided release from captivity and imprisonment.
Having reached old age, St Nicholas peacefully fell asleep in the Lord. His venerable relics were preserved incorrupt in the local cathedral church and flowed with curative myrrh, from which many received healing. In the year 1087, his relics were transferred to the Italian city of Bari, where they rest even now (See May 9).
The name of the great saint of God, the hierarch and wonderworker Nicholas, a speedy helper and suppliant for all hastening to him, is famed in every corner of the earth, in many lands and among many peoples. In Russia there are a multitude of cathedrals, monasteries and churches consecrated in his name. There is, perhaps, not a single city without a church dedicated to him.
The first Russian Christian prince Askold (+ 882) was baptized in 866 by Patriarch Photius (February 6) with the name Nicholas. Over the grave of Askold, St Olga (July 11) built the first temple of St Nicholas in the Russian Church at Kiev. Primary cathedrals were dedicated to St Nicholas at Izborsk, Ostrov, Mozhaisk, and Zaraisk. At Novgorod the Great, one of the main churches of the city, the Nikolo-Dvorischensk church, later became a cathedral.
Famed and venerable churches and monasteries dedicated to St Nicholas are found at Kiev, Smolensk, Pskov, Toropetsa, Galich, Archangelsk, Great Ustiug, Tobolsk. Moscow had dozens of churches named for the saint, and also three monasteries in the Moscow diocese: the Nikolo-Greek (Staryi) in the Chinese-quarter, the Nikolo-Perervinsk and the Nikolo-Ugreshsk. One of the chief towers of the Kremlin was named the Nikolsk.
Many of the churches devoted to the saint were those established at market squares by Russian merchants, sea-farers and those who traveled by land, venerating the wonderworker Nicholas as a protector of all those journeying on dry land and sea. They sometimes received the name among the people of "Nicholas soaked."
Many village churches in Russia were dedicated to the wonderworker Nicholas, venerated by peasants as a merciful intercessor before the Lord for all the people in their work. And in the Russian land St Nicholas did not cease his intercession. Ancient Kiev preserves the memory about the miraculous rescue of a drowning infant by the saint. The great wonderworker, hearing the grief-filled prayers of the parents for the loss of their only child, took the infant from the waters, revived him and placed him in the choir-loft of the church of Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) before his wonderworking icon. In the morning the infant was found safe by his thrilled parents, praising St Nicholas the Wonderworker.
Many wonderworking icons of St Nicholas appeared in Russia and came also from other lands. There is the ancient Byzantine embordered image of the saint, brought to Moscow from Novgorod, and the large icon painted in the thirteenth century by a Novgorod master.
Two depictions of the wonderworker are especially numerous in the Russian Church: St Nicholas of Zaraisk, portrayed in full-length, with his right hand raised in blessing and with a Gospel (this image was brought to Ryazan in 1225 by the Byzantine Princess Eupraxia, the future wife of Prince Theodore. She perished in 1237 with her husband and infant son during the incursion of Batu); and St Nicholas of Mozhaisk, also in full stature, with a sword in his right hand and a city in his left. This recalls the miraculous rescue of the city of Mozhaisk from an invasion of enemies, through the prayers of the saint. It is impossible to list all the grace-filled icons of St Nicholas, or to enumerate all his miracles.
St Nicholas is the patron of travelers, and we pray to him for deliverance from floods, poverty, or any misfortunes. He has promised to help those who remember his parents, Theophanes and Nonna.
St Nicholas is also commemorated on May 9 (The transfer of his relics) and on July 29 (his nativity).
MEDITATIONS |
CHRISTMAS MEDITATION 2011 Today He Who holds the whole creation in His hand is born of a Virgin.
In the days just before Christmas the melodies and hymns of the Orthodox Church parallel those of Great and Holy Week. This is no coincidence. We are reminded that the babe in the manager is none other than God incarnate. There is a direct connection between this and the hymns we sing in commemoration of the Lord’s passion and crucifixion on Holy Friday. In both cases—in the days before Christmas and the days before Pascha—we recall the awesome mystery of God as Man and Man as God in the Person of Jesus Christ, the Eternal Son and Word of God Incarnate. The divine paradox of all powerful weakness, unlimited limitation, infinite finiteness, shocks our minds from every attempt to label and box this mystery into easily defined categories of philosophical thought. When we try, we are confronted by the impossible words: “He Who holds the whole creation in His hand is born of a Virgin”/ “He who hung the earth upon the waters is hung on the tree”. Our narrow human logic is rebuffed by images like these. We can only stop and wonder. Likewise, the hymnody of Christmas prepare us for the “reason for the season”, meaning, the reason why Christ came among us. His birth in the hiddenness of the manger—concealed in a cave—prefigures His passion and death, made brutally public for all the world to see. The benign witness of the animals at the crib and the glorious star in the heavens prefigure the day the sun went black and the earth quaked in agony at His death. Indeed, we cannot separate His birth in the manger from His passion on the cross. The one led inextricably to the other. This is prefigured by the wicked King Herod’s attempt to kill Him as an infant. The great joy and comfort we feel at Christmas is tenuous as the readings for the Sunday after Christmas make clear (the slaughter of the Holy Innocents and the Flight into Egypt). The world, we learn, is happy to celebrate the birth of a baby, but it is terrified to contemplate the implications of this particular baby—who, though weak and helpless, is also the Redeemer and Judge of the world. The Infant Lord, conceived in the womb of the Virgin by the power of the Holy Spirit and born from her for our salvation will not be contained by the sentimental images we so often have of the manger. The gentleness and sweetness last but for a moment before the great drama begins and “peace on earth” is turned into a war with the dark powers (human and inhuman) that threaten to swallow Him up. Of course, they cannot succeed. The Light that shines forth from Bethlehem is none other than the Unfading Light that we will sing of on Pascha. The battle begins, but it is already won. The wisdom of the Church in pairing the words and melodies for the Christmas services with those of Holy Week and Pascha is grounded in the irreducible fact that we cannot have one without the other. Without a birth there could be no death, and without a death there could be no resurrection. He was born to die and to rise again for the salvation of all. This is the gift that never grows old. It is priceless and God alone could have given it.
From St. Ephrem of Syria’s First Hymn on the Nativity of the Lord
This is the night of the Sweet One; let us be on it neither bitter nor harsh.
THE REAL SPIRIT OF GIVING
St. Nicholas, of course, is known for his great kindness and generosity. Perhaps the most famous story of his gift giving is the one which tells how he ransomed three impoverished young women from a life of servitude and worse by providing them each with a dowry as they came of age. The story tells of how he secretly stole up to their house in the night and threw bag of gold coins into the open window. In the case of the first two no one could guess who the benefactor was, but when it came time for the third young woman to come of age, the father waited up during the night to expose the gift-giver. In so doing, he discovered it was none other than the bishop of the town (Myra, in Asia Minor--modern day Turkey), Nicholas. St. Nicholas' kindness was an imitation of the overwhelming kindness and compassion of God, who sent His own Son as a gift to the world for its salvation. Likewise, Christians in many times and places have given gifts to one another to acknowledge and celebrate to birth of that greatest Gift of all. As with most good things, the world can find ways of perverting it. The crazed buying and selling that dominates the "holiday season" can, indeed, be repulsive. Yet, the world's sometimes twisted response to the concept of Christian gift giving need not make our hearts cold to the idea of giving to those whom we love--and even more, giving to those whose needs cry out for remedy. It must be noted that despite (or, perhaps, because of) the glut of advertising to buy, buy, buy, there is also a tremendous impulse to give to those in need on the part of millions of Americans during this time of year. Rather than condemn the world, which God loved so much as to give His only Son, why don't we become co-workers with Him in its redemption? Following the example of St. Nicholas let’s give generously to those in need even as we give to those whom we love (in imitation of Him Who, out of love, gave Himself for us). Here is a possible way to doing just that: Let’s tithe on our gift giving. For every dollar we spend on gifts for others let’s give ten percent toward those in need. This can be in the form of cash gifts or donated time and goods in support of individual persons or organizations. We can do this in a hundred different, creative ways. For instance, if we spend a thousand dollars in gifts for our family, friends, co-workers, etc., we can donate one hundred dollars to Abby's House (for homeless women), or Problem Pregnancy (for pregnant women who want to choose life for their babies, but are in extreme financial or emotional need), or to the local food bank, or (anonymously) to a family in need in our parish... and so on. We can make small donations to many or larger donations to a few. In smaller ways we can be especially generous in our tipping if we go out to eat (remembering that many waiters and waitresses are poor single parents, students struggling along to make ends meet, etc.). We can be patient with our time in the midst of the crowds and bustle and overlook the many small aggravations that come from increased traffic, tight parking, and tired and anxious people. This time of year offers us the opportunity to imitate the generosity of God to all who are around us—our loved ones and the too often unseen poor. Our patron, St. Nicholas, shows us the truest Christian model for giving, one grounded in love and compassion for the other. Let’s imitate him and give with joy and gratitude for all that we have received from God, always mindful of the Gift that will never fail—the supreme Gift of love—Christ, Himself.
READ PAST MEDITATIONS BY CLICKING ON THE LINKS BELOW
MEDITATIONS ON THE NATIVITY OF CHRIST I MEDITATIONS ON THE NATIVITY OF CHRIST II-- MARY MOTHER OF GOD MEDITATIONS ON THE NATIVITY OF CHRIST III SUNDAY OF THE PUBLICAN AND PHARISEE ORTHODOXY IN AMERICA REVISITED
|
