We’re writing this letter during the Christmas season, a time here in Turkey when pictures of Santa Claus, or “Noel Baba,” appear in stores and advertisements for the annual New Year celebrations and gift-giving. New Year is a secular holiday here and a time when many people exchange best wishes for the coming days. What's interesting is that the use of Santa Claus in this holiday has intriguing roots in Turkey.

St. Nicholas, who is revered particularly in the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, as well as recognized by Anglicans and Lutherans, lived in the late 200s and early 300s. He was archbishop of the Christian Church at Myra (modern Demre), on the coast of southwest Turkey, where he was buried. Famous as a secret gift-giver and helper to those in trouble, he came to be important to a range of groups, including sailors, fishermen, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, children, students, prostitutes, bakers, brewers, scholars, travelers in fear of being robbed, pawnbrokers, pharmacists, virgins, and brides. Church legends preserve many stories of how he appeared to such people, worked miracles, gave them gifts anonymously, and saved them from peril with his material and practical assistance. His reputation spread throughout the Balkans and Europe. The official feast day of St. Nicholas is December 6.

In Holland St. Nicholas is known by the name "Sint Nicolaas," or “Sinterklaas.” Appearing in the garb of an archbishop from the Mediterranean, he would leave gifts for children in their shoes on his feast day. In “New Amsterdam,” which became New York, Dutch colonists brought with them their traditions of St. Nicholas. Even today he is the patron saint of New York. His Dutch name eventually became Americanized to “Santa Claus.”

A major re-invention of the St. Nicholas traditions occurred in America in the 1830s with the publication of the poem, “Twas the Night before Christmas: A Visit from Saint Nicholas.” Santa Claus lost his archbishop clothing and serious visage and was described as a "peddler just opening his pack" and a "right jolly old elf." He seemed more like a prosperous, happy, northern European grandfather figure, riding in the snow sleighs of New England, giving gifts not simply to help those in need but solely for the pleasure of it. And he did so on December 25. The new poem took mighty hold in American culture and spread inexorably around the world, eventually returning to Turkey.

Today the ownership of St. Nicholas/Santa Claus is close to universal, whether in a sacred or secular sense. This diversity of understandings of the old Christian archbishop is reflected in the four radically different statues of him you’ll find today in Myra/Demre in Turkey. Pilgrims in their thousands descend on the site of the church of St. Nicholas each year, where they can see the statue of a tall Father Christmas sheltering children at his feet; a Russian sculpture of an Orthodox archbishop in liturgical vestments; a plastic statue of a chubby, jolly, Santa Claus in his red suit with white trim and black boots; and a new statue of a “Turkish Santa” holding children and looking a bit like a modern rural peasant. There’s something for everybody, which we suppose is one of the important aspects of Christmas.

Ken and Betty Frank
Istanbul, Turkey

Ken & Betty Frank serve with the American Board in Istanbul, Turkey.  They share the job of General Secretary of the American Board.  They also serve on the board of the Istanbul Interparish Migrant Program (IIMP).