Patron Saint of Sailors
St. Nicholas of Myra, feast day December 6
The patron saint of sailors is St. Nicholas of Myra, the fourth-century bishop of a Mediterranean coast whose feast is December 6, long before he became Santa Claus. Our Lady, Star of the Sea, St. Elmo, St. Brendan and St. Francis of Paola are also invoked at sea. AngelGuard tells their stories and marks what is legend.
Quick facts
Why St. Nicholas of Myra?
Long before he became Santa Claus, Nicholas was a bishop in Myra, on the coast of what is now Turkey, and the sea was the world his city lived by.
The patronage rests on an account of sailors caught in a storm who called on him and reported that he appeared aboard, took hold of the ropes, and brought the ship through. Whether or not you take the account literally, the effect is documented: harbour churches dedicated to Nicholas appear all along the Mediterranean and then far beyond it, and sailors carried the devotion with them wherever they traded.
That is how a bishop from a coastal town in Asia Minor ended up as one of the most widely venerated saints in both East and West, centuries before any connection to gift-giving.
The familiar figure came later and by an odd route: his reputation for secret generosity, particularly a story about providing dowries for three impoverished sisters by night, travelled through the Dutch Sinterklaas into the modern Santa Claus. The sailor came first.
St. Brendan the Navigator is invoked by voyagers particularly, and St. Elmo is associated with sailors through the electrical discharge at masthead that still carries his name.
Who was St. Nicholas of Myra?
Nicholas was bishop of Myra, in what is now Turkey, in the fourth century, and he is one of the most widely venerated saints in both East and West despite the historical record being thin. He is thought to have suffered imprisonment under Diocletian and to have been present at the Council of Nicaea.
The stories that survive are about rescue. The best known has him throwing bags of gold through the window of a poor man's house at night, three times, so that his three daughters would not be sold: the origin of both the secret gift-giving and, by a long route, of Santa Claus.
The sea stories are why sailors claim him. In one, he calms a storm on a voyage to the Holy Land; in another, he appears aboard a foundering ship and takes the ropes himself. Ports across the Mediterranean and the Baltic are dedicated to him, and for centuries a ship leaving harbour would be blessed in his name.
Prayer to St. Nicholas of Myra
St. Nicholas, who stilled the storm and stood at the ropes when the crew could not hold them: watch over everyone at sea tonight, those working and those crossing, and over the people ashore waiting for them. Bring them into harbour. And where a ship does not come back, be near to those who wait. Amen.
The feast: December 6
December 6. It is a major feast in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and much of central Europe, kept with gifts on the eve, and in Greek and Russian tradition he is among the most honoured of all saints. In port towns the day is often marked with a blessing of the fleet. Our Lady, Star of the Sea, is invoked alongside him by sailors of most nations.
How to ask their intercession
Ask before setting out, as with any journey. Fishing communities in many countries still keep a blessing of the fleet, and his feast on December 6 remains a working sailors’ day in ports that have kept the custom.
St. Nicholas and the sea: what is legend and what is history
Nicholas was a man of the coast. Tradition makes him a native of Patara, a Mediterranean port, and bishop of Myra, further along the same Lycian coast. The storm stories told above are legends, written down centuries after his death, and the page says so. The same legends of rescue made him the patron saint of children. What is history is where the devotion went, told in full on the page for St. Nicholas. In 1087 sailors from Bari took his relics home by sea, and from Bari his cult spread with the ships that traded from the Mediterranean to the Baltic.
The Gospel gives the pattern the legend copies. When a storm broke over the lake, Jesus “rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ The wind ceased and there was a great calm” (Mark 4:39).
Other patron saints of sailors and the sea
- St. Erasmus, or St. Elmo (June 2), a martyr of about 303 whose later legends have no historical basis. One story has him keep preaching while a thunderbolt struck the ground beside him, and sailors who feared lightning took him for their own. The blue glow of electrical discharge at a masthead in stormy weather is still called St. Elmo’s fire.
- St. Brendan the Navigator (May 16), the sixth-century Irish abbot of Clonfert. The Voyage of St. Brendan, written perhaps in the eighth century, tells of his voyage with his monks in search of a promised land across the ocean. It is a legend and was read as one; it made him the patron of voyagers.
- St. Francis of Paola (April 2), the fifteenth-century hermit of Calabria. Refused passage across the Strait of Messina by a boatman, he is said to have spread his cloak on the water and sailed across on it. He is invoked by boatmen and naval officers.
Our Lady, Star of the Sea
The oldest title of all for sailors belongs to Mary: Stella Maris, Star of the Sea. It probably began as a copyist’s slip. An early interpretation of the name Mary read stilla maris, “a drop of the sea”, and a scribe wrote stella, “star”. The mistake caught on because it was true in another way. The hymn Ave maris stella, “Hail, star of the sea”, dates from about the eighth century, and in the twelfth St. Bernard of Clairvaux wrote the lines that made it a prayer: if the winds of temptation rise, “look to the star, call on Mary.”
The first apostles were men of the water too. Jesus found Simon and Andrew “casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen”, and told them: “Come after me, and I will make you into fishers for men” (Mark 1:16–17). Coastal churches all over the world are called Star of the Sea, and many ports keep a blessing of the fleet at the start of the fishing season.
A prayer for someone at sea
For a sailor, a fisherman, a navy crew, a cruise or a crossing, and for the family ashore. Psalm 107 describes the sea as sailors know it: “They mount up to the sky; they go down again to the depths. … Then they cry to the LORD in their trouble, and he brings them out of their distress. He makes the storm a calm, so that its waves are still” (Psalm 107:26–29).
Lord, you made the sea and you calmed it. Watch over (name) and everyone on board tonight. Give them fair weather, a sound ship, and a crew that looks after one another. In a storm, be their calm. Bring them to their desired haven, and home to those who wait for them. St. Nicholas, pray for them. Our Lady, Star of the Sea, pray for them. Amen.
For those who wait ashore, the same Psalm ends: “Then they are glad because it is calm, so he brings them to their desired haven” (Psalm 107:30). For journeys by land and air, see the patron saint of travelers and a prayer for safe travel.
The Navy Hymn, sung at the U.S. Naval Academy since 1879, asks God to hear us “for those in peril on the sea.” For all who have served, at sea and ashore, there is a Veterans Day prayer — with one for the families who wait at home.
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