Errata for Who is the Historical Santa Claus

After posting my blog entry entitled "Who is the Historical Santa Claus", I've received the following response:

Nice summary--just a few additions--

Nicholas was born in Patara, a town not far to the west of Myra in Lycia, Asia Minor, now Turkey. Not in Italy.

A technical matter--houses in that time did not have chimneys (a common misunderstanding)--there would have been an opening in the roof for the fire.

Nicholas' remains were taken to Bari, Italy, in 1087, where a basilica was built over his crypt. There are many, many towns named for St. Nicholas -- often ports along coasts and rivers as sailors carried stories of him wherever they went. Chapels and churches were named for him, often in ports as Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors and seamen, as well as children, maidens, the falsely accused and many others.

For more, see www.stnicholascenter.org

Here's my reply:

Thank you for the information.

The reference that I used is incorrect about St. Nicholas' birth place. I should have check other references.

As for Nicholas' resting place, I dug a little deeper and found that it's a bit more complicated than simply one resting place for St. Nicholas. Everyone agrees that sailors originally stole St. Nicholas' remains from Myra and took them to Bari. However, there was, evidently, a lot of contention for his remains. It seems that people were literally stealing his remains and moving them to their city.

For instance, Venice claims to have most of Nicholas' remains and that Myra only has one of his arm.

The most bizarre claim is that Nicholas II, the Czar of Russia, donated the remains of St. Nicholas to St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in New York. And after the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001, the church building was destroyed and the remains of the saints kept there were lost.

The bottom line is that I can neither confirm nor deny any claim of St. Nicholas' final resting place. It's all pretty bizarre to me that someone would actually rob a crypt of its dead remains.

The people who claim to have St. Nicholas' remain should open up their crypt and let forensic researchers figure out from DNA and whatever other tests to see who have a piece of St. Nicholas.