Translate Italian

here is that translation
Conference held by prof. Luigi Martino

1994

St. Nicholas: The Great Adventure

(Story of a Man and His Offspring)

History of Anatomical Recognitions of Skeletal Relics of St. Nicholas of Myra



Dear Lords, Authorities, dear colleagues - to many of whom I know how to remember their beautiful age of great enthusiasm - I am very pleased that I have welcomed the invitation of Prof. Pannacciulli, former President of the Bari Healthcare Club, To bring to your knowledge all that, for my part, I could personally reveal the bodily remains of our Saint Patron in Bari, St. Nicholas, who was Archbishop of Myra in Asia Minor in the fourth century AD.

Talking about Saints is already about God, the invisible Creator who loves his creatures. God's thoughts and the work of God prefer to point to them with the simplistic term of Nature, which we often can not recognize as wise, provident, overwhelming, meditating, rebalancing, innovating, always as a mysterious supreme intelligence, Whole universe.

Speaking of Saints is already already speaking of the Word, which has indicated to us for all and for ever what is in the true Reality of things both Good and what is bad for all Humanity for this special Social Body Living, the highest of Creations, because it can be more perfected, but only by the voluntary good collaboration of the men who make it up.

Saints are the luminous Points of Reference, how to devote joyfully to life, to be God's collaborators, to be the loving hand of the God of the Sons, the Poor, the Needy on Earth, and the Examples of how - by overcoming the pervatic materialism of the same Reason - one can already hear, from the depths of our instinct, the voice that reveals the invisible and mysterious reality of the Ultraterreno.

St. Nicola as a young man, with extreme enthusiasm and always with simplicity and humility, dedicated himself to the presence of the comforting God among his people. He became ready, spontaneous, rescuer of the young and the weak, the poor; He became generous and impassioned champion of the unfortunate and the persecuted, faced impetuously without fear violent and proud, stood authoritatively to the powerful, endured resignedly in labors, in suffering, sacrifices, was honest administrator model and sagacious goods community. His unalterable righteousness and great goodness gave him charisma, his passionate words made him a traitor of conscience. Often he even manifested supernatural, prodigious, miraculous, taumaturgical powers. He was considered a Domo-Santo already alive, so that they all worshiped to resort to Him in the shadows and invoked Him in dangers.
He was born in Patàra, in the Licia of southern Anatolia, presumably between 250 and 260 AD. He was the only son of wealthy parents, of great Christian pity, and grandson (on the paternal side) of Archbishop of Myra, named Nicola, who was admired by the young man and interested in his education.

Myra was a port city of Anatolia, with lively merchant activity, located in Licia itself, relatively short distance from Rhodes and Cyprus by sea, and from Palestine and Egypt by land.

Click on the picture
To enlarge it

What is left of Myra (today Demrè) of the ancient Basilica of St. Nicholas


He received orders Sacred perhaps at the age of 27 years, devoting himself entirely to the care of the religious community of the diocese, already endangered by the terrible persecution of Christians, which began in 278 by Emperor Diocletian. At the death of his uncle Nicola (his holy archbishop Archbishop, called the Zionite), Nicholas wanted to retire to the hermitage, and then leave pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He went first to Egypt in Alexandria, to venerate the tomb of the evangelist St. Mark, then, at Said, to meet the hermits of the Thebaid. Finally he went to Jerusalem to worship the Holy Places. He returned to Myra, to his generous mission of God's servant and persecuted. Great was the joy of the proclamation of the Edict of Milan of 313, which finally recognized the Christian religion as a state religion. Edith had been signed by Constantine, the Emperor of the West, and by his brother-in-law Licinius, the Emperor of the East. In 314, for the death of John, Archbishop of Myra, for a merciful and intrepid Nicola - a great event, unexpectedly manifested. The bishops, who had come together for the appointment of the successor, found themselves forced to decide, following a greeting sign foreseen as divine designation, and then appointed the pious Nicola new Archbishop of Myra.

It was Nicholas's dedication to the heavy task. This, however, was immediately exacerbated by the last convictions of Christians, wished there