St. Nicholas, a Pagan Saint

St. Nicholas is the saint whose feast day is traditionally celebrated on December 6, though many people nowadays celebrate it on Dec. 25th in conjunction with Christmas. He was originally based on the Samothracian goddess Nike (understood to mean "Victory") as well as the Greek god Poseidon, a sea god.

It is often said that St. Nicholas was a Christian bishop of Myra, a city in southern Turkey, and while there may have been such a person, he is certainly not the source for this saint. What very little is known about Nicholas of Myra (based on the writing of Ephraim), shows that he was never martyred, and never had anything to do with the sea. Most of the stories that are told about him were added to his name in the Middle Ages, and were based mainly on his pagan characteristics. Nicholas has several antecedents among the Indo-European gods, especially Nike and Poseidon.

Nike was the sea-goddess of the Samothracians (an island in the north of the Aegean sea), and she was held to be responsible for the Athenian naval victory which saved Athens from destruction by the Persian navy. Her statue and temple were visible from the cliffs of the island and she became a symbol of victory throughout the Greek-speaking world. The statue made for her is the very famous and beautiful "Nike of Samothrace" which is now in the Louvre Museum in Paris. The name Nike is part of a set of names of Indo-European gods and goddesses who have power over water, both rivers and oceans. Because the names of the river/sea gods in northern dialects such as the Slavic and Germanic languages were cognate with the name Nike and still similar to it, it was easy for a slightly Christianized version of this god to replace the pagan gods. However, the power over water and the main festival time remained the same.

The major festival for this god falls at the end of November or early December based on the Greek tradition in the Mediterranean Sea, which of course is much warmer than the northern seas. At this time the ships were brought back to harbor for the winter storm season. This was true whether the shipping activity was merchanting, war or fishing. When the ships came back everyone celebrated their return and if the activity were successful, there would be "presents" or at least a lot of food (fish!), for the home-bound folk. This is the reason that giving presents is associated with St. Nicholas.

In Greek pagan religion, the main sea god is known as Poseidon. The etymology of this name is debatable, but it may be borrowed from the Phoenicians, who worshiped Poseidon as the main god of their city Beirut. The Greeks learned to sail from the Phoenicians, so they probably absorbed this god at that time. The Posidia was a major festival in coastal areas of Greek cities and it was celebrated at the same time of year as the festival of St. Nicholas.

In Latin, this type of festival was called a Navalia. The word Navalia later became "Noel" in French and songs that celebrated the return of the sailors were pressed into service in the Christian church or rather people just continued to sing them anyway--most are traditional folk tunes. Any song with Noel in the chorus is suitable for welcoming back those who return by ship, whether or not they happen to be in the Navy.

St. Nicholas is the patron saint of Russia, which of course was very dependent on shipping and fishing in the northern seas. The Germanic form is Hnikar, obviously a pagan god who appears in Old Norse mythological tales. Along the northern coast of Europe, people continued to worship the pagan god, but under the Christian name.

St. Nicholas was first Christianized in the Greek orthodox church and when both the western and eastern churches were still conversant, his cult became popular in western Europe as well (as it actually was important before the introduction of Christianity). Later when the schism developed between the western and eastern churches, the Roman Catholic church did not support his cult as much, although he was still very popular among the people. The Roman Catholic Church dropped St. Nicholas from the liturgy in 1963, because even they had to admit that this was obviously a pagan god, but many northern people still honor this god/saint. He is still important in the Greek orthodox and Russian orthodox churches.

Here is an explanation about Pagan Saints.