On August 10–11, 2023, services for the reviving feast of the Nativity of St. Nicholas of Myra in Lycia, the Wonderworker, were celebrated at St. Nicholas Patriarchal Cathedral in New York.
For all the immense veneration of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the Russian Orthodox Church, the feast of his birth is not yet as well known or widespread. During the reign of Empress Catherine II this ancient feast was abolished, and it began to be revived only in 2004. Meanwhile, the tradition of celebrating the Nativity of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker existed in Rus’ from the 13th century, and in Veliky Novgorod there was even a monastery dedicated to this feast.
At St. Nicholas Cathedral in New York, on the evening of August 10, 2023, the rector, Archpriest Igor Vyzhanov, served the All-Night Vigil for the feast of the Nativity of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, and on the morning of August 11, with the cathedral cleric Priest Mark Rashkov, the Divine Liturgy was celebrated.
In his address to the parishioners, the rector of St. Nicholas Cathedral emphasized that it is precisely in churches dedicated to St. Nicholas the Wonderworker that the tradition of celebrating his Nativity should be revived.
