The myth of Santa Claus, or Father Christmas, is linked in the collective imagination to the snowy expanses and woods of northern Europe. In reality, the myth was inspired by the figure of Saint Nicholas, born in Patara di Licia in 270 AD, a few kilometers from one of the most beautiful (and popular) beaches in Turkey. Saint Nicholas became the Greek bishop of the city of Myra, today Demre, also a town on the Turkish coast. In the town of Demre the church of St. Nicholas is an attraction for tourists from all over the world, a place of worship for Orthodox and Catholics where mosaics and frescoes are still visible, but above all the damaged sarcophagus where Italian pirates, first from Bari and then from Venice, stole the ‘alleged’ bones in 1087. However, the death of the Saint occurred several centuries earlier, around 343 AD
Circumstances and cross-claims that have kept the mystery alive for years. A topic on which Turkish archaeologists have been determined for some years to clarify and silence those who are convinced that the bones are found in Bari or Venice. Turkish excavations have been going on since 1989 now a new sarcophagus seems to be able to reveal the truth about the Saint’s relics. “The latest excavations, surprisingly, have put us in front of a two meter long sarcophagus, located at a depth of about one and a half meters in a structure south of the church courtyard. An extraordinary discovery. Now it is essential to trace the date of the burial and decipher the writings to confirm who was buried there”, explains the director of the excavation, Ebru Fatma Findik.
The archaeologist from the University of Hatay underlines the importance of the discovery “for the whole of Christianity”. “According to various sources, the body of the Saint would have been buried in a sacred place near the church. The fact that such an important sarcophagus came to light in this spot is in line with these writings”, declared Findik enthusiastically. There are many legends surrounding the figure of Saint Nicholas. According to the information available in Santo, he distinguished himself during his bishopric in Myra for the gifts given to the children of the most destitute families and for his help to the poor. Works that made him much loved. The story begins to be shrouded in mystery when in 1087 Muslim troops besieged the city.
Thus began a race between Bari and Venice to return home triumphant with the saint’s precious relics. We are in an era in which the “race for relics” was a question of prestige, honor and supremacy among Christian cities. A crew of 72 sailors who left the port of Bari years earlier, while in Antioch, now Antakya, in the far south of Turkey, learned of the location of the Saint’s remains. However, the news also reaches the powerful Venetians. The people of Bari arrive first, overcome the resistance of the Byzantine monks, break down the crypt from where they take everything they can before fleeing hastily on their galleys, surrounded by the anger of the inhabitants.
The influential Venetians did not digest the defeat; this is confirmed by a manuscript by a monk in the Marcian library, which tells of a raid that took place following that of the Bari people, with the sailors returning triumphant to the port of the Serenissima with the bones of three saints, including “St. Nicholas the Great”. The dispute regarding the double translation has inflamed scholars and believers for years. Attempts to put an end to the controversy have been in vain. Just think about that first in 1953 in Bari and later in 1992 in Venice, analyzes were carried out on the remains kept in the two cities by the anatomopathologist Luigi Martino, of the University of Bari.
Martin decreed the “compatibility” between the relics of the saint kept at the two ends of the Adriatic. In practice, the people of Bari would have taken the skull, shoulders and other parts of the alleged saint, quickly removed from the crypt, leaving the remains of the body to the Venetians, who arrived much later. A conclusion that gave no peace to the Bari faithful, nor to the Venetian faithful, nor to the Turks who for years have been claiming, not without nationalistic pride, that the Italian pirates stole from the wrong sarcophagus.
“We have analyzed all the documents written between 1942 and 1966 and we have reason to think that Bari and Venetians stole the bones of another priest, while those of the Saint are found in a more hidden crypt”, declared the Turkish archaeologist Cemil Karabayram 4 years ago. The discovery of the new sarcophagus seems, for now, to prove the Turks right, even if it will hardly calm the eternal dispute over the true fate of the remains of the Saint born in Turkey, but who became a symbol throughout the world.