About 17 centuries have passed since Saint Nicholas, the great miracle worker, Archbishop of Myra, lived and labored on earth, who is now revered and glorified by the entire Christian world for his zeal for the faith, virtuous life and countless miracles, and still manifested to all of them who resort to him with faith in his help and in the mercy of God. It pleased God’s providence to send St. Nicholas to earth in one of the most difficult times for Christianity. The third century after the Nativity of Christ, in the second half of which he was born, was a time of decisive struggle between Christianity and paganism, when the question had to be finally decided: will the faith of Christ replace paganism or will paganism remain indestructible and suppress Christianity forever? Christianity was undoubtedly superior already decaying paganism with its inner strength, based on the Divine teaching of Jesus Christ and His holy apostles. But at that time there was an external force on the side of paganism, which, by all means available to it, sought to suppress Christianity, which it hated. Thus, a Christian was considered a criminal, an enemy of the Roman gods and Caesar, a plague on society, which they tried in every possible way to exterminate. Zealous pagans - the Roman emperors, considering Christianity the death of the Roman Empire, and Christians - its most dangerous enemies, brought down cruel persecutions on them, during which they forced them to renounce Christ, worship idols and the image of Caesar and burn incense in front of them. If the Christians did not agree to this, then they were thrown into prison and subjected to the most painful tortures - they were tortured with hunger and thirst, they beat them with rods, ropes and iron rods, and burned their members on fire. If, after all this, they remained unshakable in the Christian faith, then they were put to a painful death - drowned in rivers, given over to be torn to pieces by wild animals, burned in ovens or on fires. It is impossible to list all the cruel torments that irritated pagans subjected innocent Christians to! One of the most severe persecutions of Christians was that undertaken by the Roman Emperor Valerian. In 258 AD, he issued an edict that prescribed terrible measures against Christians. According to this edict, bishops, presbyters and deacons were killed by a blow of the sword; senators and judges were deprived of their property, and if they remained Christians even then, they were also betrayed executions; noble women were sent into exile when their property was taken away; all other Christians, chained, were condemned to hard labor. This persecution fell with particular force on the pastors of the Church, and many of them sealed their faith with martyrdom. (Then Saint Cyprian in Carthage fell under the ax, Saint Lawrence in Rome was baked on an iron grate.) But all the efforts of the spirit of malice to shake the Church, which, according to the word of its Divine Founder, the gates of hell will never be able to shake (Matt. 16, 18 ), turned out to be futile. At the same time that the martyr’s blood of the shepherds of the Church was shed, which turned out to be the fruitful seed of Christianity, the Lord was pleased to give in their place to the Church a new zealous defender and champion of the faith of Christ, Saint Nicholas, whom the Church worthily calls him a wonderful miracle worker, an unsetting star of the bright Sun, a Divine preacher, a man of God, a chosen vessel, a pillar and affirmation of the Church, a representative and comforter of all who mourn.