Sari Sadik Baba

Evliya Celebi learned this when he was visiting Patras in 1668:

Sari Sadik Baba is visited by the Greek infidels too, for they say that "this is our Saint Nicholas." By giving their offerings to the keepers of the tomb, they make their visits to him. None of the authorities have been able to root this practice out absolutely.

Once, when this saint wished to cross from the city of Vostitza to the Bay of Naupaktos, opposite, the sailors started across without taking him into the boat. Sari Sadik Sultan then gathered a little sand from the seashore into the skirts of his robe and walked onto the sea after the boat, scattering the sand grain by grain. The sailors watched, and as the heart-wounded dervish came on, filling up an area extending for two thousand paces, they became panic-stricken lest the saintly dervish should fill up the entire sea this way, and by closing off the gulf, deprive them of their place of work.

So they called out, "Come and get in the caĩque, Old Father," and taking him at once into the boat, ferried him across to Naupaktos. For this reason, there is a mile-long sandy point on the Vostitza side of the gulf.

This, then, is Sari Sadik Sultan, holiness be upon him, who lies at rest in Patras, and to bring his holiness to its fullest visibility, he has been transported to Heaven.

From Evliya's Travels in the Morea © Pierre A. MacKay.
About Evliya's manuscript.
The Modern Bridge