Sacred bones of saint who inspired Santa Claus destroyed in church raid just before Christmas

Bone fragments attributed to Saint Nicolas were stolen from a church in France, then allegedly burned and crushed. Priests at Saint Nicolas de Port, one of France's few sanctuaries to hold a relic of the saint, reported the theft of a reliquary containing a fragment of the saint's body on November 2. Police later arrested the suspect, who reportedly admitted acting spontaneously out of a 'desire to destroy' the relic because he viewed devotion to the bones as a form of idol worship. Saint Nicolas, the inspiration behind Santa Claus, lived between 270 and 343 AD and is famous for...