From saint to Santa Claus: How did a charitable local bishop become a worldwide symbol of rampant consumerism? Jeremy Seal traces St Nicholas's remarkable 1,650-year journey.(ST NICHOLAS)

From: Geographical | Date: December 1, 2005| Author: Seal, Jeremy | Copyright information

In February 2005, the authorities in Demre, a shabby Anatolian town in southern Turkey, unceremoniously carted off the bronze statue that had stood in the main square. An idle bystander might have assumed that this act marked the Balkan-style fall of some short-lived local despot. However, the statue actually commemorated a far more resilient individual, one who had died here all of 1,650 years ago.

The figure the authorities had removed from his plinth--and in his home ...

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