However, not many may know that Santa, the most popular symbol of Christmas, is inspired from and modelled after St Nicholas, a fourth-century bishop from Myra in ancient Turkey known for his generosity and secret gift-giving. Some may find it hard to believe that the real-life Santa has a Kerala connection. For more than a century, Pampakuda, a sleepy village located 35 km away from Ernakulam, has been home to a relic of St Nicholas.
Barring residents, not many are aware the modest wayside shrine at Pampakuda in front of St John's Ephesus Orthodox Church is home to six priceless relics, one of which is a fragment of the remains of St Nicholas.
The other sacred relics, all kept in metal reliquaries inside a wooden case at the shrine, are stone fragments from the Milk Grotto Chapel in Bethlehem where the Blessed Virgin is believed to have breastfed the Child Jesus, a glossopetrae (a fossil) fragment related to St Paul the Apostle, and relics of St Kuriakose, a fourth-century child martyr, St George, a third-century martyr, and St Shmuel, the founder of Qartmin Monastery in Turkey.
"It was another saint who brought the remains to this village in the 1890s," said Fr Johns Abraham Konat, the vicar of St John's Church and principal secretary to Moran Mar Baselios Marthoma Mathews III, the head of Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church.
"St Geevarghese Mar Gregorios aka Parumala Thirumeni brought the relics to Pampakuda after visiting the Holy Land in 1895," he said.
'Hardly anyone knows about the relics outside the hamlet'
"He wished to gift them to his tutor, Konat Geevarghese Malpan," said Fr Konat. Upon knowing his beloved guru had passed away while he was overseas, Saint Gregorios gifted the relics to Fr Konat Mathen, who was the Malpan (teacher) then. My grandfather, Konat Mathen Malpan, was instrumental in enshrining the relics near the wayside cross. said Fr Konat whose family had several illustrious Syriac scholars.
Fr Konat explained that the relics were gifted to St Gregorios by the Metropolitan of Jerusalem when he visited the historic Church of St Mark.
Though St Nicholas, who is known as Mor Zokhe in Syriac Orthodox tradition, remains pretty much obscure among Malankara Orthodox believers, the Church liturgically commemorates him on December 6. "The shrine is frequented by believers, including non-Christians, who seek the intercession of St Nicholas and the other saints. However, outside the hamlet, hardly anyone knows about the relics," he said.
Today, the bulk of the relics of St Nicholas rests in Bari in Italy, though fragments of his bones are kept in churches across Europe.
During Reformation, devotion to St Nicholas waned in Protestant countries except in the Netherlands, where his legends lingered.
When Dutch colonists migrated to the American colonies in the 17th century, they took with them stories of Sinterklaas, a Dutch variant of St Nicholas, and thus arose the figure of Santa Claus.
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