Happy New Year and welcome to the first Thomas More Centre newsletter of 2024! Since the launch of the ‘TMC redux’ last June, we’ve been building up our capacity to produce edifying content and deliver informative events such that 2024 promises to be a big, breakout year.

Before listing coming events in January, we thought we’d provide a detailed recap of the final event from last year. It is by our Queensland organiser, Mark Makowiecki, with a version of it to be published in an upcoming issue of News Weekly.

St Nicholas of Myra talk

On a stormy evening in Brisbane this past December, the TMC was pleased to host Dr Amelia Brown for its final event of the year. Dr Brown, a senior lecturer in Greek History and Language at the University of Queensland and who had just returned from a three-week research trip to Corinth, gave an informative and engaging talk entitled ‘The Real Saint Nick: The Life and Legacy of St Nicholas the Wonderworker.’

Dr Brown, who with Dr Julian Barr is translating the Miracles of Saint Nicholas into English (a review of Barr’s book, Tertullian and the Unborn Child, can be read here), spoke about the beloved saint’s good works and reputed miracles, how his cult spread throughout Europe on the back of a tradition of piety among Mediterranean sailors, and how depictions of him morphed from a charitable gift-giving bishop from Asia Minor into a jolly red-suited sleigh-driver from the North Pole. What follows is a summary of her talk, supplemented with some minor additional research.

While little is known about Nicholas, he was born at Patara, a city on the southern coast of modern-day Turkey, in the third century. While the date of his episcopal ordination is unknown, he became bishop of Myra – a city now known as Demre in the Turkish province of Antalya – and developed a reputation for works of charity.

A particularly famous story involves him paying the marriage dowries of three young sisters who would otherwise have been forced into a life of prostitution. This he did discreetly, so that the father of the girls might save face. In one of the earliest artistic depictions of the story, the good bishop is shown dropping the three payments through the family’s window. This presumably gave rise to the tradition whereby children leave their shoes out on the eve of St Nicholas’ feast day (December 6) so that he might fill them with chocolate ‘coins’.

The custom of stocking-stuffing also seems to be indebted to Nicholas’ dowry payments, for some medieval paintings show the saint putting coins into the stockings of the unwed sisters, which had been hung out to dry.

In addition to his charitable works, St Nicholas came to be associated with a variety of miracles. For instance, one story relates that he was on a ship when a fierce storm broke out, causing distress and resulting in the loss of a sailor’s life. St Nicholas, however, calmed the storm and restored the life of the sailor, leading to the conversion of those on board.

In fact, these seafaring miracles were largely responsible for the early spread of his cult. For Myra was a key port city at the time, and sailors – who Dr Brown showed were very pious men even prior to the advent of Christianity – naturally began praying for his intercession and protection. As a result, devotion to him grew rapidly throughout the Mediterranean region.

Following his death, Nicholas’ relics remained in Myra for many centuries. However, in 1087 his bones were taken to Bari in southern Italy and placed in a basilica built by the Norman adventurer, Robert Guiscard. They remain there to this day, with the feast of the translation of his relics taking place in May. Interestingly, an examination of his remains show that he had a short stature and a broken nose.

The transformation of St Nicholas into Santa Claus began with medieval developments in northern Europe and, in particular, the Netherlands: the place where St Nicholas’ life served as the inspiration for the legendary old man known as ‘Sinterklass’. His subsequent association with Christmas came about when certain Protestant reformers, wishing to abolish the cult of the saints whilst retaining the practice of gift-giving, replaced St Nicholas with the Christ Child (‘Christkindl’) as the gift-bringer and adjusted the gift-giving date accordingly (i.e., from December 6 to December 24).

Dutch and German migrants – some still holding to elements of the older Catholic feast – then brought their Christmas traditions to the United States and it is there that Santa Claus became a reindeer-pulled sleigh-driver (see Clement Clarke Moore’s 1823 poem ‘A Visit from St. Nicholas’).

Suffice it to say, it was an illuminating talk about a well-known but little understood saint. We were also pleased that Dr Brown stayed on afterwards to speak with and answer the questions of both children and adults, as we partook of mulled wine, speculaas biscuits and other fare.

Bug Hall interview

After some technical delays, our 2-hour long interview with Bug Hall should be available to watch on YouTube in the next week or so. Bug is a retired actor best known for his role as Alfalfa in the 1995 children’s movie, The Little Rascals. Bug converted to Catholicism in 2013 and has embraced a simpler life on the land with his family in recent years.

Our wide-ranging interview covers a variety of topics - his childhood, acting career, religious conversion, marriage and family, and present outlook on life. We’ll let you know as soon as its available. Besides giving it a listen, we’d appreciate it if you could share it widely to help build our channel.

TMC Speaker Series (Brisbane): The New Adam

And tomorrow, Thursday (January 11), our very own Mark Makowiecki will be giving a free talk entitled 'The New Adam: How Jesus Undoes the Fall of Man in the Gospel of John'. Mark completed his higher degree by research at the University of Notre Dame in 2020, and his article on the same subject is due to appear in an international peer-reviewed journal in April.

The talk will be held at 6pm in the community meeting room at Indooroopilly Library (Level 4 of Indooroopilly Shopping Centre, 322 Moggill Rd, Indooroopilly QLD). Afterwards, there will be drinks/dinner at the Pig ‘n’ Whistle pub next door. Please let us know you’re coming by booking here.

Thank you for your support!

The Thomas More Centre team