Our Holy Father Nicolas the Confessor.

Commemorated February 4 in the Orthodox Christian Menaion

From the Prologue

This saint was from the island of Crete. He went to Constantinople to visit his kinsman Theodore, abbot of the Studite monastery, and remained there to become a monk. As a monk, Nicolas followed all the ascetic practices that are prescribed for the soul's salvation. During a persecution of the Church on the part of Leo the Armenian, Theodore and Nicolas were harshly tortured, humiliated, beaten with bull-whips and finally thrown into prison, where they spent three years. After the death of St Theodore, Nicolas became abbot of theStudium. Even during his lifetirne, God blessed him with the power to work miracles. He healed Eudocia the wife of the Emperor Basil, and Helen the wife of the patrician Manuel. To Theophilus Melisenus, a distinguished nobleman who had lost several children, he prophesied, in blessing his new-born daughter, that she would live and be fruitful, a prophecy that was later fulfilled to the joy of her parents. On the very day of his death, he called the monks together and asked them what they lacked. 'Wheat', they replied. Then the dying man said: 'He who sustained Israel in the wilderness will send you abundant wheat in three days.' And indeed, a boat full of grain, sent by the Emperor Basil, arrived below the monastery on the third day. Nicolas entered into the heavenly Kingdom on February 4th, 868, at the age of 75.

From The Prologue From Ochrid by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich
©1985 Lazarica Press, Birmingham UK