Greek Texts on St Nicholas' Deeds and Miracles as a Historical Source. A.V. Bugayevsky (Moscow)

Many events described in Greek narratives devoted to the life and miraculous deeds of St Nicholas have been fully corroborated by historical chronicles and archaeological evidence.

Some of the facts we find in the Greek texts about the deeds and miracles that occurred during St Nicholas' lifetime contain unique information of historical, geographical and topographical importance, and therefore they can be considered as invaluable historical sources.

Thanks to the historically reliable information contained in the «Deeds of the Stratilates», «Hymns» by St Andrew of Crete, Life of St Nicholas by Archpriest Michael and a number of other Greek texts devoted to St Nicholas the Miracle-maker it has become possible to reconstruct the chronology of his life and establish the exact date of his death: the 6^th of December 334 AD.

The dates of the events related in various Greek texts on the posthumous miracles of St Nicholas, which are mentioned in the present article, allow us to date back these hagiographic works to the earlier period than Gustav Anrich had supposed. Some of them can be dated back, with a high degree of probability, to the early Byzantine epoch rather than the 9^th–10^th century.

The extant Greek tales about the deeds and miracles of St Nicholas performed by him during the early Byzantine period testify to the fact that in the 6th to 8th centuries the archbishop of Myra in Lycia was greatly revered not only in Lycia and Constantinople but also in Tanais, Calabria, Northern Africa (the kingdoms of the Alans and the Vandals), in Rome, Crete, Sicilia, and even in some lands quite distant from Asia Minor, such as India and the British Isles.

The dating of those early Byzantine tales about certain posthumous miracles performed by St Nicholas, mentioning the churches and icons dedicated to him, indicates that before the 9th century churches in his honor were built and icons bearing his image were painted in various Mediterranean areas. Moreover, from those tales about his miracle-making in the first half of the 9th century, a considerable number of churches had already been dedicated to him. It seems quite apparent that many of those churches built in St Nicholas' honor were constructed even before the appearance of the narratives about the miracles that were taking place in them, that is, before the 9^th century.

Having arisen in Lycia in the 4th century the veneration of St Nicholas reached Constantinople already during his lifetime. The fame of the wonderful miracles of the mighty God-blessed saint spread quickly around the Mediterranean and it kept growing and becoming widespread all over the Christian world.