The Journey: How an obscure Byzantine Saint became our Santa Claus. David Price Williams
gentler and more caring. And it works! Many legionaries who’ve joined our ranks spend their free time ministering to the outcasts, to the poor and sick in our community. It’s amazing, don’t you think? Alas over the years many have become Christian martyrs too, suffering death, often
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after weeks of torture, rather than go back to a life of confrontation and killing. But we’re still winning their hearts. I’m sure you’ll meet some of our army converts today Nicholas.”
We turned left again down a street leading towards the harbour and stopped before a fairly modest building.
“This was once a synagogue,” continued Polios. “It’s now used as one of our meeting houses, where we not only pray but the community also provides meals for the needy and the beggars. You wouldn’t think so would you, among such wealthy and cultured people, but there are hundreds and hundreds of men and women who don’t have jobs or who are in some way incapacitated and who are totally overlooked by the city fathers. It’s a shocking disgrace really, but we help anyone who comes to us, with food, clothing and even shelter.”
Polios pushed the door open and we went inside. I was amazed. There were scores of poorly dressed men and women sitting at a long table silently eating what appeared to be a thick soup from wooden bowls.
“They come in here off the street,” observed Polios. “They’ve nowhere else to go. Our community feeds them and cares for them and given enough encouragement they can often turn their lives around. See those girls serving there; they were once the very same – street orphans. This is what the love of Christ can do for people. It can transform lives.”
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When they had all finished what was before them, a man in a white toga raised his hands in blessing, gave thanks to almighty God and wished them all well, after which they all intoned “Amen.” Polios led me across the room to the man in white and introduced him to me as Eusebius.
“Eusebius is one of the elders here, but he is much more than that. He’s a scholar and a teacher and understands more about our faith than anyone I know. He has studied all the scriptures and the commentaries. He actually comes from Caesarea in Palestine where he was instructed by Dorotheus of Tyre, one of our most important church fathers.”
“Whilst what he says is true, Nicholas, don’t pay much attention to him! I’m just like anyone else. But I do try to teach people about the kingdom of God when I get the opportunity. Are you of our faith Nicholas?” asked Eusebius.
I was eager to answer him.
“No, but I should like to learn and to become as you all are. What do I have to do?”
Eusebius quickly replied, “I will introduce you to Theodorus our ‘Episkopos’ here, our bishop. Let’s see what he says. I would ask Polios to wait here a moment. Come.”
We walked across the room into a small office in the corner where a particularly august old gentleman was seated reading.
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“Theodorus,” said Eusebius. “This is Nicholas from . . . sorry, which city are you from?”
I told him.
“Nicholas is from Patara on the Lycian coast. He wishes to join our number.”
“God is indeed pleased. Welcome Nicholas!” the old man said. “If you have the time, you should spend a month or two with Eusebius, or more if you can afford to, learning about Jesus and his followers and how we seek the kingdom of heaven here on earth. If Eusebius would be so kind as to do that, we will put your name forward for the sacrament of baptism. We have a service in a couple of weeks.”
So it was arranged that I should receive instruction from Eusebius on the life and teachings of Jesus. Polios was going to be in Alexandria for some days and I was thus able to go each morning from the ship to find my tutor and so came to learn of the love of God for mankind and the story of our Lord’s selfless sacrifice for us, that we may be forgiven our wrongs and cured of the ills of the world. I found it an incredible message, truly the ‘good news’ of my life. It was so very different from the divisive world of the all-pervading gods of Greece and of Rome with which I had been brought up, or new gods like Sol Invictus, the Invincible Sun, gods whose mien was only too human. These gods were venal and self-centred, peevish and
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bad tempered and so casual in their supposed relationships with the world and with mankind that we had to wheedle and debase ourselves before their images to try to extract some small blessing or advantage. Christ represented the total opposite of that. As son of God he gave his life that we might live. He sacrificed himself that we may be freed from our sins. He lived his whole life as the picture he wanted us to aspire to, of how life should be lived, how we should behave to one another. He taught love and forgiveness, not hatred, suspicion and anger. This was how I wanted to live own my life, to give myself to Jesus and his message.
Sunday fortnight came around and with Eusebius’ help I was now ready for admission into the church of Christ. It was to be the day of my baptism. There were to be three of us given our rite of passage into Christianity that day - myself, a man my own age named Andreas who it seemed was once somehow attached to the Roman army in north Africa, and a pretty, local servant girl called Anna. We were each dressed in a simple white cotton shift and were presented before the bishop, Theodorus, in a baptistery at the back of the old synagogue. Each of us was asked in turn if we wanted to become Christians, to be a member of Christ’s flock, to which we said we did. Then one by one we entered a walk-in pool, until we were totally submerged.
Then Theodorus made the sign of the cross with oil on our foreheads and said, “May the God of peace sanctify you in
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spirit and in soul and in body and make you one with Him, now and ever after, Amen.”
The small gathering of people who had stood and witnessed the event sung a short hymn thanking God for all his mercies to us and when they had finished they all shook us warmly by the hand and welcomed us into the church of Christ. I felt incredibly uplifted, as if a heavy weight had just been taken from my back and I was curiously elated to be with all these strangers, though they were strangers to me no more. I was one of them. I had joined the church of Christ. I was now a Christian, something which was to change me so completely it’s hard when I look back over my life to remember a time of not being part of this marvellous community of souls. I said a little prayer to myself, thanking God for choosing me to join his flock, for forgiving all my past wrongs and for bringing me into his new light.
The afternoon of my baptism I went back to the ship with Polios and found the crew cleaning out the empty hold. The cargo had finally been unloaded and the hull was clearly riding higher in the water than before.
“We’re waiting for a cargo of wheat for Diocletian’s armies,” he informed me. “We’ve got a contract to transport it to Brundisium at the heel of Italy. The armies of the Rhine are short of bread and they’ll mutiny if they don’t get their daily rations. You have
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to feel sorry for them, don’t you, stuck up on the other side of the freezing Alps, although as far as I am concerned, I’d rather not work for the Romans at all. The administrator we’re dealing with here is so officious.