Bari - Event

Every year Bari re-enacts the arrival by sea of the body of Saint Nicholas from Turkey in 1087. The "translation" is the centrepiece of the festival, taking the statue from the San Nicola Basilica out to sea and back again.

One of the more interesting details of this celebration is the miracle of the manna di San Nicola, a clear liquid which seeps from the bones of the saint and which is collected every year from the urn in which the bones are kept. This liquid is mixed with water and either drunk or smeared on diseased parts of the body by the faithful, and is said to have miraculous healing properties.

Saint Nicholas (255-334) is hailed as an icon of both the Eastern and the Western Churches, advocate of the Unity of the Holy Church and protector of the family. He is said to have come from an affluent Christian background in Patara, in what is now modern-day Turkey. He moved to Myra where he became bishop almost by accident in 295, because one of the Church elders had dreamt that the first layman with the name of Nicholas to enter the local church on a given morning was to be made bishop.