On Wednesday, Cemil Karabayram, the head of Antalya’s Monument Authority, told the Daily Sabah that his team has searched through historical records relating to the St. Nicholas Church in Demre and found reason to believe that the conventional story about what happened to the remains of Saint Nicholas could be wrong.
The saint is believed to have been buried at the church before it was damaged in an earthquake. According to one account, Italian merchants stole his bones from a damaged sarcophagus (pictured above) during the first crusade in 1087 and brought them home where they’ve been stored at the Basilica of Saint Nicholas in Bari, Italy ever since. Each year, on December 6th, the clergy collects a clear liquid that seeps from the tomb that is believed to have miraculous powers. Some believe that the liquid is seeping in from outside the tomb, which is below sea level. But if people really are collecting some nasty liquid from a dead guy’s bones, it might be the wrong dead guy.
