Homily on the Beheading of the Prophet and Forerunner John

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!

Come the Forerunner of John and the Baptist of Christ... let us honour all faiths diligently.

Today the Holy Church remembers and honors the memory of the tragic conclusion of the life of one of the greatest people who ever lived on earth, according to the definition of Christ the Savior Himself, – the beheading of the holy glorious Prophet and Apostle, Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord John.

A servant and mystery of the ineffable miracles of Christ, John was so great that the Church preserves the memory of all the manifestations of his life: his conception, birth, and in memory of his mission as the Baptist of the Savior (the Synaxis of John the Baptist – the day after the Baptism of the Lord), and his martyrdom – the beheading, and the three discoveries of this honorable head – a great shrine for the world, and the transfer of the right hand of St. John from Malta to Russia (1799).

And all year round, every Tuesday, the Church prays and asks for the prayerful intercession before God of John the Baptist and the Baptist of the Lord.

Everything in his life is unusual, everything is the predestination of new spiritual values that go beyond the framework of the Old Testament. He is the Forerunner of Him Who is the Way, the Truth and the Life for eternity – Christ the Savior, the Son of God.

The great destiny of the life of the God-gifted infant John and the name itself were determined in the Pre-eternal Council long before his birth into the world, when God's Providence through sorrows and reproaches prepared his parents to give to the world the one who would announce the fulfillment of the times, the appearance of the Son of God. And the purpose of this nascent life was revealed by the Angel to his father, the priest Zachariah, even before the conception of his son. «... thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John; ... he will be great in the sight of the Lord... and he shall be filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb; and he shall turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God; and shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah..." (Luke 1:13-17).

And John's testimony about the coming of the Savior Christ into the world also begins before his birth, when, while still in his mother's womb, "[he] leaped up as a child in her womb" and through her mouth announced to the world an event unprecedented, but expected since ancient times: "... and whence shall I come this, that the Mother of my Lord may come to me..." (Luke 1:43).

This was the first meeting of those who were preparing to appear into the world to fulfill the will of God for the salvation of the world: the Son and the Word of God, incarnate in humanity, and the Voice of the Lord, announcing the revealed Truth – John, the earthly Angel and the heavenly man from his very birth.

They met – the Word and the Voice – on the threshold of life and disappeared into obscurity until the time comes, so that each may grow to fulfill the mission assigned to him from above. They parted ways to meet again in due time. John the Baptist will always reveal the Savior to the world and bear witness to Him with the bold voice of the prophet and apostle. John the Baptist would always foretell to the world his teachings, in order to then depart into the obscurity of a martyr's death for the Truth to the bottom of hell, in order to become the Forerunner of Christ there as well.

The Holy Gospel has preserved about the life of John the Baptist only that which was directly connected with the life of Christ the Savior, and therefore information about him is scarce.