{"id":14912,"date":"2024-12-10T00:21:12","date_gmt":"2024-12-09T23:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=14912"},"modified":"2024-12-10T00:21:24","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T23:21:24","slug":"the-life-and-times-of-saint-nicholas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=14912","title":{"rendered":"The Life And Times Of Saint Nicholas"},"content":{"rendered":"
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THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SAINT
\nNICHOLAS
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Should you wish to make a pilgrimage to honour the life of Saint Nicholas you would not be going to Lapland. Firstly because according to popular culture he is still alive and kicking up there in the frozen wastes. Secondly you would be going in entirely the wrong direction. You would need to head south to Bari. No, not Barry, but its almost namesake: the southern Italian port city on the Adriatic.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>About the man himself. According to the available literature (ie Wikipedia) he was born in 270AD in Patara on the Mediterranean coast which is now in present day Turkey. His father was an early Christian bishop and following a series of miracles in youth it was inevitable that he would also become a priest. Eventually when a vacancy for a new Bishop of Patara arose, he was the logical shoe in for the role.<\/p>\n

Whilst he was Bishop he was credited with various Good Works, the most memorable being the gifts, initially made anonymously, of purses containing gold coins to a father facing penury whose three daughters faced a ruinous future. Which is, children, the reason behind us all gifting presents to each other at Christmas.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s more than just this to his name. A ship he was on was nearly destroyed by a terrible storm but he rebuked the waves. Thus, Nicholas became venerated as the patron saint of sailors and travellers. And in due course also of merchants, archers, repentant thieves, children, brewers, pawnbrokers (hence their Three Golden Balls), toymakers, unmarried people, and students. He died in around 343AD and was buried in Myra which is also in present day Turkey.<\/p>\n

And so, back to Bari. Until Italy was unified into one nation in 1861, it was a diverse collection of city states. A rival state was that of Venice, and in the 800s AD, they had stole the body of Saint Mark from Alexandria and this became the focus for highly profitable pilgrimages to Venice. The citizens of Bari were quite jealous of the Venetians and decided that they also needed a Saint for people to come and venerate and generate some revenue.<\/p>\n

A group of merchants stole most of his skeleton, ostensibly to prevent it from falling into the hands of an invading Muslim army. They brought them to their hometown, where they are now buried deep underground in that city\u2019s cathedral.<\/p>\n

Tony Hodge<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SAINT NICHOLAS Should you wish to make a pilgrimage to honour the life of Saint Nicholas you would not be going to Lapland. Firstly because according to popular culture he is still alive and kicking up there in the frozen wastes. Secondly you would be going in entirely the wrong direction. You would need to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[334],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6cWjO-3Sw","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13781,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=13781","url_meta":{"origin":14912,"position":0},"title":"Welsh Boundary Commission Review 2023","author":"Alan Williams","date":"3rd November 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"WELSH BOUNDARY COMMISSION REVIEW 2023 On Thursday 14 September 2023 and Extraordinary Council Meeting was held to discuss the above subject. Commission proposes to transfer the St Lythans ward, which is currently part of the Community of Wenvoe, into the Community of St Nicholas and Bonvilston. The proposal sees the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Community Council News"","block_context":{"text":"Community Council News","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9625,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=9625","url_meta":{"origin":14912,"position":1},"title":"St Nicholas to Peterston-super-Ely","author":"Alan Williams","date":"6th May 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Footsteps St Nicholas to Peterston-super-Ely Escaping from Wenvoe, we parked in St Nicholas, near the church, and explored north to Peterston-super-Ely. I walked with 3 different households over a few days. As one of my companions said, \u2018It\u2019s so nice to have a view to the north after so long.\u2019\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Footsteps"","block_context":{"text":"Footsteps","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=38"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Picture7-300x251.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8441,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=8441","url_meta":{"origin":14912,"position":2},"title":"Parc Dyffryn Renewable Energy","author":"Alan Williams","date":"17th October 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Parc Dyffryn Renewable Energy What is it? \u00a0 Parc Dyffryn is a unique and progressive renewable energy solar project, which will also enhance the local biodiversity. Parc Dyffryn will be located on land at Vianshill Farm between The Downs and St Nicholas. Parc Dyffryn will strive to intertwine green electricity\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Latest News"","block_context":{"text":"Latest News","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=70"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/dyffryn.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/dyffryn.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/dyffryn.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3777,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=3777","url_meta":{"origin":14912,"position":3},"title":"Dyffryn House","author":"Alan Williams","date":"27th September 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Dyffryn House is the Victorian mansion house within the Edwardian listed gardens in St Nicholas. It is currently managed by the National Trust on a 50 year lease. The House Steward and research teams are always looking for information on the history of the site. The original collection owned\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Latest News"","block_context":{"text":"Latest News","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=70"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7387,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=7387","url_meta":{"origin":14912,"position":4},"title":"\u2018Tombland\u2019 by C.J. Sansom","author":"Alan Williams","date":"2nd April 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2018Tombland\u2019 by C.J. Sansom This month, our book was \u2018Tombland\u2019 by C.J. Sansom. This was the seventh in the series of Matthew Shardlake, the hunchbacked lawyer detective. In this case Shardlake is directed by Lady Elizabeth (the future queen) to investigate the murder involving a distant relative. In so doing,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Off The Shelf"","block_context":{"text":"Off The Shelf","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=347"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8003,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=8003","url_meta":{"origin":14912,"position":5},"title":"Peterston Super Ely","author":"Alan Williams","date":"11th August 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Footsteps Peterston Super Ely We parked in St Nicholas, within our 5-mile limit, to do a walk based on Valeways walk no. 37 Peterston super Ely (A ridge and valley walk). The main walk is 2 loops of 3 miles and 4 miles centred on Peterston Super Ely. From St\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Footsteps"","block_context":{"text":"Footsteps","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=38"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Picture71-300x210.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14912"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14912"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14913,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14912\/revisions\/14913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}