St. John the Forerunner and Baptist

The conception of the Forerunner was foretold by the archangel Gabriel to the priest Zacharias as he served at the altar of incense in the Temple, on the day Zacharias drew the lot to enter the sanctuary. His mother Elizabeth was a kinswoman of the Theotokos and "well stricken in years," past hope of childbearing. Six months later the same Gabriel went to her cousin in Nazareth with a further annunciation.

The child leaped in Elizabeth's womb when the Virgin came to visit, recognizing his Lord before his own birth. He grew in the deserts of Judea — fed (his garment of camel's hair and his belt of leather are explicit borrowings from Elijah) on locusts and wild honey — until the word of God came to him there and he began to preach a baptism of repentance at the Jordan. When the Lord Himself came to be baptized, the Forerunner protested that the order should be reversed; but he obeyed, and over the open heavens the Holy Spirit descended and the Father's voice was heard.

He bore witness to Christ as the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world. When the Lord began His public ministry, John was content to decrease, saying, "He must increase, but I must decrease — He that hath the bride is the Bridegroom; but the friend of the Bridegroom rejoiceth greatly because of the Bridegroom's voice."

Herod Antipas had taken his brother Philip's wife Herodias. John rebuked him for the unlawful marriage, and Herodias contrived his death. At Herod's birthday banquet her daughter Salome danced before the king and his guests, and Herod swore by an oath to give her whatever she asked; on her mother's prompting she asked for the head of John the Baptist on a platter. So the Forerunner was beheaded in the fortress of Machaerus, around the year 31.

The Lord said of him that among those born of women no one had arisen greater. The Church gives him many feasts: his Conception (September 23), his Nativity (June 24), the Synaxis after Theophany when he baptized the Lord (January 7), the three Findings of his head (February 24 first and second; May 25 the third), and his Beheading (August 29, a day of strict fasting).