07 — The Relics and Bari
In 1087 a band of merchants from the southern Italian city of Bari sailed to Myra, broke open the saint’s tomb, and carried his relics back to their home port — an event venerated in the East and West as a translation and read by historians as something closer to a seizure. These files recount that translation and its disputed character, the myrrh-streaming “manna” that flows from the relics at Bari, and the Venetian counter-claim; and they trace the spread of one of the most universally venerated cults in all of Christendom, East and West alike.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Wonderworker; Great Hierarch)
The relics of Nicholas are the physical center of his cult and the reason the city of Bari became, and remains, a great place of pilgrimage for Orthodox and Catholic Christians together. The first file of this section tells how they came there: the 1087 expedition, the rival Latin accounts of it, the honest acknowledgment in the sources that the removal was forcible and partial, the phenomenon of the myrrh-like “manna” that the relics are said to exude, and the competing claim of Venice to hold a portion of the saint. The second file widens the lens to the cult itself — its astonishing reach across both halves of Christendom, the thousands of dedications, the patronage of nations and peoples, and the way Nicholas became perhaps the most universally honored non-biblical saint of the undivided and divided Church alike.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Translation to Bari (1087) | The 1087 expedition from Bari to Myra; the Latin accounts of Nicephorus and John the Archdeacon; the forcible, partial removal of the relics; the building of the Basilica di San Nicola; the myrrh-streaming “manna”; and the Venetian counter-claim. |
| The Cult East and West | The spread of one of the most universally venerated cults in Christendom: its reach across East and West, the thousands of dedications, the patronage of nations and peoples, and Bari as a shared pilgrimage of Orthodox and Catholic. |
See Also
- What the Relics Tell Us — the forensic study of the Bari relics
- The Cult East and West — the cult these relics anchored
- The Making of Santa Claus — where the Western cult eventually led
- The Pre-Schism Church — the undivided Church whose veneration of Nicholas was universal
References
- Jones, Charles W. Saint Nicholas of Myra, Bari, and Manhattan: Biography of a Legend. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978.
- English, Adam C. The Saint Who Would Be Santa Claus: The True Life and Trials of Nicholas of Myra. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2012.
- Anrich, Gustav. Hagios Nikolaos: Der heilige Nikolaos in der griechischen Kirche. 2 vols. Leipzig and Berlin: B. G. Teubner, 1913–1917.