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"I am the voice of one crying in the desert." Words
often associated with the martyred prophet John the Baptist. The
son of Elizabeth and Zachariah he lived as a hermit in the wilderness
until about the age of thirty when he began to preach 'the Kingdom
of Heaven is close at hand' urging people to repent and to be
baptized.
One of those he baptized on the banks of the Jordan River was
Jesus Christ. John is said to have immediately recognized Jesus
as the long awaited Messiah and declared that he was not worthy
to baptize Jesus.
St. John was known for his outspoken declarations and denouncing
of those he thought to be in sin. One of the people he denounced
was Herrod Antipas, King of Judea. Herrod was involved in an incestuous
adulterous relationship with Herodias, the wife of his half-brother.
When John the Baptist criticized this relationship and urged Herrod
to repent, Herrod had John the Baptist imprisoned.
Herodias had a daughter, Salome, with her legal husband. Herrod
instructed Salome to dance for him and was so enamored with her
performance he promised her anything she wanted. At the prompting
of her mother, Salome asked for the head of John the Baptist on
a silver platter. (Matt. 14:6-8)
Saint John was imprisoned approximately seven months after he
baptized Jesus on the Banks of the Jordan River. The Gospel dates
the beheading of John the Baptist before the Crucifixion of Jesus.
While John the Baptizer was in prison he was visited by Jesus'
disciples who kept him informed of Jesus' ministry. Yet, those
disciples did not believe John when he declared Jesus the Messiah.
According to Scripture (Matthew 11:2-15) John bade them return
to Jesus to ask if He was the Prophesied One. In that same hour
Jesus cured many people of diseases, hurts, evil spirits and blindness.
Jesus told his disciples to return to John and tell them you have
"heard and seen: the
blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are made clean, the deaf
hear, the dead rise again, to the poor the gospel is preached
and blessed is he whosoever shall not be scandalized by me"
(Luke 7:20-23; Matthew 11:3-6).
There are several stories about what became of John the Baptist's
head. According to Church Tradition the body of John the Baptist
was buried at Sebaste. Legend holds that Herodias took Saint John's
severed head and buried it in a dung heap. Later, Saint Joanna,
who was married to Herod's steward, secretly buried the head on
the Mount of Olives (Luke 8:3)
In the fourth century, the head was found on the Mount of Olives
and eventually passed into the possession of a government official
by the name of Innocent. He found the vessel with the head of
St. John the Baptist when he dug the foundation for a church.
Fearing the relic would be abused by unbelievers, he buried it
in the same place he found it. When he died the church fell into
ruin and was destroyed.
The Second Finding occurred during the days of Constantine the
Great when two monks on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem reportedly saw
visions of John the Baptist, who revealed to them where his head
was located. They found the relic, placed it in a sack and proceeded
home. Along the way they encountered a potter and let him carry
the bag without telling him what it held. The spirit of John the
Baptist appeared to the potter and ordered him to flee from the
careless monks. The potter took the head home with him and before
his death gave it to his sister. After some time Eustathius, an
Arian, came into possession of the head and used it to attract
followers to his teaching. He buried the head in a cave, near
Emesa. Eventually, a monastery was built there and in the year
452 St John the Baptist is said to have appeared to Archimandrite
Marcellus of this monastery.
Around the year 820, the head of John the Baptist was transferred
to Comana of Cappadocia during a period of Muslim raids and hidden
in the ground during the iconoclastic persecution. When the veneration
of icons was restored in 850, Patriarch Ignatius of Constantinople
(847-857) was given a vision where the head of St John was hidden
and communicated his knowledge to the emperor Michael III, who
sent a delegation to Comana. When St. John the Baptist head was
found it was transferred to Constantinople, and was placed in
a church at the court on May 25.
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