The Saint of Christ Nicholas, the great wonderworker, quick helper and excellent intercessor before God, was raised by the land of Lycia. He was born in the city of Patara. His parents, Theophanes and Nonna, were famous people, high-born, Orthodox and wealthy. This blessed couple, for their God-pleasing life, many alms and great virtues, were deigned to be like a holy root, to produce a holy branch and, like a tree planted by a stream, to bring forth its fruit in due time. When this blessed child was born, they gave him the name Nicholas, which means: conqueror of the people. And he, by the blessing of God, truly proved to be a conqueror of evil, for the good of the whole world. His mother Nonna, as soon as she gave birth to him, immediately became free from pain, and from that time until her death she remained barren. Thus, nature itself seemed to testify that this woman could not give birth to another such son: Nicholas was to be the first and the last. Sanctified by divinely inspired grace while still in his mother's womb, as soon as he began to live, he began to revere God devoutly, as soon as he began to suckle, as soon as he began to work miracles, as soon as he began to eat, he began to fast. For after his birth, even in the baptismal font, he stood for three hours on his own feet, unsupported by anyone, paying homage to the Most Holy Trinity, of whom he was later to be a great minister and representative. The future miracle worker could also be recognized in him by the way he held onto his mother's breasts: he sucked not, like other children, from both of his mother's breasts, but only from the right, signifying that he would stand at the right hand of the Lord together with the righteous. He also began to show himself to be an extraordinary faster, for on Wednesdays and Fridays he would breastfeed only once, and that in the evening, after his parents had finished their usual vespers prayer rule. His parents were very surprised at this, and predicted that their son would later in life be a strict ascetic. Accustomed from infancy to such abstinence, blessed Nicholas spent his entire life in strict fasting every Wednesday and Friday. Growing with age, the child also grew in intelligence and perfected himself in the virtues that his pious parents taught him. And he was like a fruitful field, which receives and grows the good seeds of instruction and brings forth every day new fruits of goodness.
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