Turks have bone to pick with Italians on Santa
Give us back the bones of Santa Claus - that was what the Turkey-based Santa Claus Foundation told Italy today in a New Year message.
Muammer Karabulut, the group’s chairman, said the remains of St Nicholas, from whom the myth of Santa Claus emerged, were stolen from what is now Turkey by pirates in the 11th century and taken to Italy.
“We want them returned in 2003. We’re starting a campaign this year for them to be given back,” he said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press.
St Nicholas was born and served as bishop of what is now the Mediterranean town of Demre, Turkey, in the 4th century AD. He was buried there, but his remains were later taken to the southern Italian town of Bari.
“He belongs in Turkey,” Karabulut said.
Hundreds of Greek and Russian Orthodox worshippers commemorate St Nicholas’s death every December 6 at a church in Demre built in his honour.
The church in Bari dismissed any Turkish claims to the saint’s bones.
“They ask for the remains only to keep tourism alive. They don’t venerate St Nicholas,” said the Rev Gerardo Cioffari, historian at the St Nicholas Basilica in Bari.
According to Cioffari, the remains of the saint’s body were brought to Bari in 1087 and have been stored there in the St Nicholas Basilica. The remains have been secured in blocks of reinforced concrete.
Karabulut said a small piece of the saint’s legs remain in Turkey.
“We plan to have the bone fragments tested this year to see if the bones in Italy and Turkey belong to the same person,” Karabulut said.
Cioffari said the bones could never be given back.
“If the remains were moved there would be a revolution here,” he said. “Even the Vatican couldn’t do anything about it.”
However, as every child who awaits his presents on Christmas Eve knows, the Santa Claus who really matters is alive and well in reindeer land.
