General Chat

Was a 4th Century Orthodox cleric from the Byzantine town of Myra in Southern Turkey. This year, researchers from Manchester University were granted permission to forensically examine his remains. A three-dimensional image of his head was produced on a computer. He turned out to be no cherubic, twinkly-eyed Santa, department store variety. He would have been about 5ft 6inches tall (well above average for his day) and aged about 65 when he died. He looks a thug, the skull is massive, almost perfectly square, heavily set like a bulldog with powerful nutcracker jaws and a pugilists broken nose. The face of an action man, not a thinker. This is in keeping with a reported punch-up he had with a fellow bishop. His eyes would have been brown and his hair and beard short in keeping with the fashion of his day and profession - and probably white. His complexion would have been a Mediterranean olive hue. If you met this fellow in your living room carrying a sack, said a professor of historical theology at Oxford University, you would reach for a shotgun. Ironically, it was the reformation that nudged the broken-faced old thug towards posterity and it was some innocent nuns in the 12th century who were the catalysts in the process. We owe it to the Dutch for increasing his popularity by associating him with the giving of gifts. Len