Celebration in honor of the transfer of the relics of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker (22/05)

On May 22, the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates the memory of the transfer of the relics of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker from Myra in Lycia to Bar. This celebration was established as early as 1087.

Nicholas the Wonderworker is honored by both the Western Church and the Orthodox world. But it is in Russia that even people far from the church know Nikolai Ugodnik as the most revered Saint by the Russian people. In addition to special holidays dedicated to him, the Church celebrates the memory of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker every Thursday. Saint Nicholas is often remembered at services and on other days of the week.

The folk calendar distinguishes two days dedicated to Nikolai Ugodnik: Winter Nikola — on December 19, and Spring Nikola (summer) — on May 22.

Saint Nicholas showed mercy even to a person who committed a terrible sin if he deeply and sincerely obeyed. Thus, he forgave the ruler of the city, who condemned the innocent for bribes, and did not complain about him to the emperor. And he could have been unexpectedly harsh: at the Ecumenical Council in Nicaea in 325, indignant at the tenacity of the heretic Arius, he hit him on the cheek, for which the assembled bishops decided to deprive St. Nicholas of his holy (episcopal) rank.



Saint Nicholas is also glorified as a miracle worker: miraculous healings and even resurrections from the dead took place through his prayers, storms subsided at sea, and the wind carried the ship where the saint needed it. The Church also knows many cases when the prayerful appeals of believers to St. Nicholas turned into miracles even after his death.

A quick and merciful assistant to the suffering, a disinterested person and a benefactor who sensitively responds to the misfortune and pain of people; a strict shepherd-mentor, acutely worried about any untruth and resolutely rebelling against it, — in these features of St. Nicholas the Orthodox see not a contradiction of character, but evidence of the living fullness of his holiness.

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