Nicholas the Pilgrim

Saint Nicholas the Pilgrim (1075-1094), also called Nicholas of Trani, was a young Greek from Boeotia who died at Trani in southern Italy on 2 June 1094. He is honoured in the Catholic Church and in Orthodox tradition, where he is regarded as a fool for Christ. He is the patron of the city of Trani.

Childhood

He was born at Steiri in Boeotia in 1075, of poor farmers who gave him no schooling. At eight his mother sent him to tend the sheep. In the solitude of the shepherd's life a life of prayer opened in him, and one day he began to cry out "Lord, have mercy", asking the Lord for his compassion. He repeated these words without ceasing, and in more populated places he was mocked and beaten, thought to be mad. His mother, believing he was possessed by demons, sent him to the monastery of Hosios Loukas, but the monks grew weary of his behaviour and drove him out.

The pilgrimage

At nineteen, by divine guidance, he resolved to go on pilgrimage to Rome. At Naupaktos he met the monk Bartholomew, who accompanied him, and boarded a ship for Otranto. There, tradition says, he helped a ship that could not enter the harbour because of strong winds to reach land. He then passed through the Greek-⁠speaking parts of Apulia, announcing the word of the Lord, singing "Lord, have mercy" and urging repentance. At Taranto the bishop, angered, had him flogged without mercy.

He reached Trani exhausted, half dead, carrying a cross and singing "Lord, have mercy", and the bishop of the place received him. In his last hour, tradition tells, he worked a wonder like that of the Saviour at the wedding at Cana: the water in the vessel from which he drank became sweet, fragrant wine. Then he departed, on 2 June 1094, at the age of nineteen.

Veneration

Three years after his death Archbishop Bisantius of Trani commissioned a new cathedral dedicated to Nicholas, and in 1098 or 1099, during a council at the Lateran, asked Pope Urban II for permission to number him among the saints. Trani Cathedral bears his name, and he is the city's patron. His life is known chiefly from three sources, the earliest written three years after his death from the account of his travelling companion Bartholomew.

The saint is commemorated on 2 June, and the annual procession through Trani takes place in the last week of July.