St. Nicholas and St. Lucy in Stari Grad

Published in Highlights

Christmas on Hvar is very different from the festive season on the mainland.

Advent candles Advent candles Vivian Grisogono

Christmas celebrations have a special pattern on Hvar, and no doubt on other Dalmatian islands. There is a definite start-date, the first Sunday in Advent, when the first of four Advent candles is lit, to be followed by each of the others in turn every Sunday in the lead-up to Christmas itself.

Advent has been celebrated in the Western Christian Church since the 7th century AD, and it starts on the nearest Sunday to November 30th, the feast day of St. Andrew the Apostle. In 2014, this fell on November 30th itself. Most households honour the tradition of the Advent candles with a decorative arrangement of the candles surrounded by flowers, fruits and other ornaments in the centre of the dining table. In the churches, the four candles are placed in front of the main altar.

As elsewhere in Europe, although not in the UK, St. Nicholas' Day has a special part in the Christmas celebrations. Children receive gifts on that day rather than on Christmas Day. Their presents have traditionally been modest tokens rather than extravagant luxuries, especially because in winter Hvar has few shops selling non-essential items. St. Nicholas is the patron saint of Zastražišće and Stari Grad, places which are renowned for their special devotions, singing and feasting on December 6th. In Stari Grad, there is a long-standing ritual of burning an old wooden boat with a giant bonfire in front of St. Nicholas' Church on the eve of St. Nicholas' Day.

St. Nicholas' church is situated not far from the Benedictine monastery in Stari Grad. It has been extensively renovated in the last couple of years, as the building had become unsound in parts. The repair work has been comprehensive. Outside, the restored roof is an exemplary piece of craftsmanship. Inside, the floors and walls have been made good, providing a proper setting for the many votive boats and other emblems which create a particular charm in this little church. For a report in Croatian on the extent of the repair work, click here

In 2014, the bonfire had to be postponed by a day because of unprecedented heavy rain on December 5th, which caused minor flood damage in many parts of the island. It was rescheduled for 2pm on St. Nicholas' day itself, and despite yet more rainfall, fireman Stjepko Rosso and his team managed to get the blaze going with skilful handling. The boat, the "Škuna" from Vrboska, was duly reduced to cinders in a matter of a couple of hours.

Once the boat was well burned, a Mass was celebrated in St. Nicholas' church by parish priest Don Ante Matulić, assisted by Pater Mario from the nearby Benedictine monastery. The magnificent harmony singing typical of the Stari Grad choirs reverberated gently over the subdued crackling of the dwindling embers of the fire outside.

 

The fire was kept well under control with good-humoured expert teamwork until the very end. Meanwhile the Mass drew to a close inside the church, and the children received their customary gift from St. Nicholas: apples thrown down from the organ loft to the young congregation, who collected their prizes with glee. Then everyone filed out for the traditional procession down to the waterfront, although the 2014 route was shorter than usual because of the inclement drizzly weather.

St. Nicholas (270 - 343 AD) was a Greek who became Bishop of Myra (now in Turkey). He was renowned for his devoutness and generosity. It is now thought that he was originally buried on the Turkish island of Gemiler Adasi, or St. Nicholas' Island, but his remains were subsequently removed to Myra for safety. They were later removed from Myra to Italy, part to be buried in Bari in 1087, while another part was taken later to Venice. It was claimed that a sweet-smelling liquid would emanate from his tomb in Myra, and this is said to have continued in Bari. St. Nicholas is patron saint to many groups of people, most notably sailors and children. In Stari Grad, this is reflected in the many votive offerings of boats and sea images which adorn the church. I have been specially pleased to learn that children receive apples as St. Nicholas' gift, as my grandfather Prvislav used to give me a St. Nicholas apple each year, and I had not heard of the tradition being continued in Dalmatia until now. Long may children continue to be pleased with such simple, humble but meaningful presents!

A week after St. Nicholas's feast day comes that of St. Lucy. In Stari Grad, she too is honoured with a bonfire the day before the actual feast day.

Stari Grad's chapel dedicated to St. Lucy is tiny, so the majority of the congregation have to stand in the chapel's little courtyard for the annual Mass celebrated in her honour. Fortunately, by contrast with the St. Nicholas celebrations the previous week, December 12th 2014 was a mild, fine, clear day, so being outside was no great hardship.

St. Lucy of Syracuse, Sicily, was a martyr in the Emperor Diocletian's persecution of Christians. She was cruelly tortured and finally executed in 304 AD, when she would have been about 21. She was born into a noble and rich family, but her father died when she was young. Her mother became very ill, and went with Lucy to the shrine of St. Agatha in Catania, where she was miraculously cured. Lucy persuaded her mother to distribute her wealth among the poor. However, this meant that Lucy's dowry was also dispersed, which so angered the young pagan man who was due to become her husband in an arranged marriage, that he denounced her to the Governor of Syracuse. When Lucy refused his command to make a sacrifice to the Roman pagan gods, the common test for Christians, she was sentenced to horrible punishments. Her eyes were taken out, although some accounts state that this was a self-inflicted mutilation. At all events, legend has it that after she was killed, her eyes were found to have been miraculously restored into their sockets.

St. Lucy is said to have predicted the end of the Christian persecutions, as well as the end of Diocletian and Maximian's rule. Diocletian abdicated because of ill-health in 305 AD, a year after St. Lucy's death, forcing Maximian to step down at the same time. After Diocletian's death, sometime between 311 and 316 AD, his Mausoleum was converted to Christian worship as the Cathedral of St. Domnius, and the crypt below was dedicated to St. Lucy. Her remains were apparently moved many times after her death, and such relics as are left of them are kept in Venice.

St. Lucy is the patron saint of the blind, as well as martyrs, merchants and writers, and she is said to protect against illness epidemics and throat infections.

© Vivian Grisogono 2014

You are here: Home highlights St. Nicholas and St. Lucy in Stari Grad

Eco Environment News feeds

  • More than half of Britain’s 59 native species are in long-term decline, UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme finds

    Last summer was the fifth worst in nearly half a century for butterflies in Britain, according to the biggest scientific survey of insect populations in the world.

    For the first time since scientific recording began in 1976, more than half of Britain’s 59 native species are in long-term decline.

    Continue reading...

  • New Zealand’s docile, solitary and elusive ‘god of ugly things’ does wonders for the forest-floor ecosystem

    Are you sick of throwing yourself on the altar of unrealistic beauty standards? Do you long to celebrate the delightfully monstrous, to give the spiny stuff of shadows their day in the sun? Then consider the mighty wētāpunga – an endemic New Zealand insect so revered for its unconventional beauty its name means “god of ugly things”.

    This forest behemoth is thought to be the heaviest adult insect in the world, with a female weighing as much as a mouse or a sparrow. Its body can grow up to 10cm long (nearly 4in) and its leg span can be as wide as 20cm. Once found across parts of the North Island, the vulnerable wētāpunga – the largest of 70 wētā species – now resides entirely on a smattering of predator-free islands near Auckland.

    Between 24 March and 2 April, we will be profiling a shortlist of 10 of the invertebrates chosen by readers and selected by our wildlife writers from more than 2,500 nominations. The voting for our 2025 invertebrate of the year will run from midday on Wednesday 2 April until midday on Friday 4 April, and the winner will be announced on Monday 7 April.

    Continue reading...

  • Government wants to spur economic growth and drive housebuilding but charities say nature should be priority

    Wildlife groups have expressed alarm after ministers promised a radically “streamlined” approach to UK environmental regulation intended to drive economic growth and speed up new housing, as well as major projects such as airports.

    While officials said the plans should boost nature conservation overall, the removal of what one called “bat by bat” decisions, a reference to the £100m bat shelter constructed for part of HS2, could water down individual protections.

    Continue reading...

  • Scientists say they are ingesting more microplastics in Mediterranean as the plankton they feed on struggle to survive in warming waters

    As the Latin name suggests, Sardina pilchardus can be called a sardine or a pilchard when it is tinned or offered on a fishmonger’s slab. One common definition is that if it is longer than 15cm it is called a pilchard and if smaller, a sardine.

    However, when pilchards fell out of favour with consumers, 15cm pilchards were rebranded as Cornish sardines and sales picked up again. To add to the confusion, other small silver fish are often passed off as sardines.

    Continue reading...

  • Inkpen, Berkshire: All is accented by a bleached-out leaching of colour – before the green fuse of spring ignites and rushes through everything

    Just before the land turns green in the chalky downlands, it goes as pale as it gets. As the earth warms and dries, the seed-drilled arable fields look as if they are spread with fresh breadcrumbs. The ruts harden and the rain-dark mud down the centre and the sides of the lanes greys and lightens to a crumbly, scuffable chalk dust that drifts in eddies and whitens everything further.

    The pasture has a thatch of winter-weathered grass, and its split-wood colour is taken up by the raffia ribbons of spent bryony laced through the hedges, and the needle-fine forest of cleaver stems reaching up from the bottom. All is accented by a bleached-out leaching of colour before the green fuse of spring ignites and rushes through everything. It’s time to harrow and roll.

    Continue reading...

  • Full of clovers and dandelions, with a hard-wearing rye grass, the approach is environmentally friendly and usable

    Is there a perfect formula for a hard-wearing flower lawn that is good for pollinators, dogs and people?

    The immaculately mown green has fallen out of favour in recent years owing to its lack of support for biodiversity. But there have also been complaints about the tall wildflower meadows that grow during “no mow May” and are less usable for humans and pets.

    Continue reading...

  • A 19th-century zoologist found the ‘little salt dweller’, which could be a portal to the past – if only we could locate it again

    Last February, with colleagues Gert and Philipp and my daughter Francesca, I made the long journey to an unremarkable city called Río Cuarto, east of the Argentinian Andes. We went in search of a worm of unusual distinction.

    Why a worm? As humans, we naturally love the animals that are most familiar. But from a zoologist’s point of view, the vertebrates, from mammals and birds to frogs and fish, can be seen as variations on a single theme. We all have a head at one end (with skull, eyes and jaws); in the middle, a couple of pairs of limbs (a goldfish’s fins, or your arms and legs); and, holding all this together, a backbone ending in a tail.

    Continue reading...

  • Locals are feeling the impact of the more than 17,000 tonnes of uncollected rubbish in the city’s streets

    “I’m afraid to open my front door, they’re everywhere,” said Mary Dore, eyeing the ground outside her house in Balsall Heath suspiciously. “They run out from under the cars when you get in, they’re going in the engines. They chewed through the cables in my son’s car, costing him god knows how much.

    “There’s one street I can’t walk my dog because they come running out of the grass and the piles of rubbish. One time I screamed.”

    Continue reading...

  • Northern Ontario is seeing a ‘shorter window’ for ice roads that deliver vital supplies to remote First Nations

    At first there was no answer on the satellite phone. But on the third call, Donald Meeseetawageesic heard his sister’s voice. “We need somebody to come and tow us out,” he told her.

    It was a warmer-than-normal night in early March and Meeseetawageesic, the elected band councillor for Eabametoong First Nation, was stranded in a 4x4 truck on the dark winter road leading to his community. The tyres were stuck in the deep snow and the temperature outside was below freezing. Help was about 60km (37 miles) away.

    Continue reading...

  • These creatures evolved over millenia to create nature’s finest circular economy, but are now struggling to survive

    There’s no preparing for a first encounter with a thriving coral reef: your attention ricochets between dramas of colour, form and movement. A blaze of fire coral, darting clown fish, crimson sponge, electric blue ray … a turtle! Your heart soars, your head spins. Nowhere else will you encounter such density and diversity of life.

    Corals are the architects of all this splendour. Their immobile forms suggest plants, but they’re animals – solar-powered ones. Each is a colony of thousands, sometimes millions, of tiny coral polyps, each resembling a slimmed-down sea anemone, just millimetres tall.

    Between 24 March and 2 April, we will be profiling a shortlist of 10 of the invertebrates chosen by readers and selected by our wildlife writers from more than 2,500 nominations. The voting for our 2025 invertebrate of the year will run from midday on Wednesday 2 April until midday on Friday 4 April, and the winner will be announced on Monday 7 April.

    Continue reading...

Eco Health News feeds

Eco Nature News feeds