Meet the layman and the priest who bore St. Nicholas’s name and defended the faith with ingenuity and grace. There is a magic ...

"This story in particular, it really kind of humanised him for me and made him a far more interesting character than I think ...

Some Christmas traditions mirror pre-Christian festivities, but some pagan influences may have been overstated.

In the early 19th century, a small number of influential New Yorkers rekindled interest in St. Nicholas, as the focal point of a wholesome, home-centered tradition quite unlike the rowdy ...

In the Czech Republic, the feast of St Nicholas is celebrated with a procession that dates back centuries. But don't expect ...

The gist of it is this: In 1087 two Italian cities, Venice and Bari, raced to be the first to steal the bones of St. Nicholas—known to us as Santa Claus—from a basilica in what is now southern ...

St. Nicholas, Father Christmas ... Mari Lwyd, an old midwinter custom in Wales, is a holdover from pagan celebrations before Christmas was introduced. Mari Lwyd means "gray mare" in English.

"The incorporation of pagan practices can be detected in late ... “By the Renaissance, St. Nicholas was the most popular saint in Europe. Even after the Protestant Reformation, when the ...