Saint Talk: St. Nick the Pugilist

When we think of St. Nicholas, we conjure up images of a kind old man dressed in red giving out gifts. While part of that story is true there is much more to St. Nicholas than that. As the painting above displays, St. Nicholas punched out the heretic Arius who had been teaching that Christ was not fully divine, but merely a creature created by God the Father. He was called upon to defend his position before the at the First Ecumenical Council of Nicea (AD 325). St. Nicholas was so outraged by what he was hearing, that he got up and punched Arius.

Needless to say, the other bishops and Constantine were taken aback by this violent display and Nicholas was stripped of his office of the bishop and imprisoned. St. Nick might have faded away into obscurity had Mary and Jesus not appeared to him in his cell and returned to him his copy of the Gospels and his episcopal pallium, the symbols of his office of bishop. Constantine heard about the miracle and reinstated Nicholas.

Eventually, the council would side with Nicolas and St. Athanasius and condemn the arianism heresy. To borrow a phrase from Paul Harvey, that's the rest of the story.

To read more about this story, I recommend reading Dr. Taylor Marshall's post on the subject.