John the Baptist: icons, frescoes, painting. Beheading of St.

With the head of John the Baptist in his hands. Amiens, France

I will not bore you with a large number of facts relating to the first and second acquisition, and will immediately move on to the moment of the third acquisition of the head of the Baptist. During the period of iconoclastic persecution, it was decided to hide the head of John the Baptist - and at the beginning of the 9th century it was transported to Komani (a city located not far from modern Sukhumi).

There are several sources indicating that in 842 the head of the Baptist was transferred from Comana to Constantinople. Also preserved is the testimony of the pilgrim Anthony that in 1200 the head of the Baptist was already divided - he saw only the front part.

Then comes the Fourth Crusade, during which Constantinople was captured. In one of the ruined palaces, the Catholic clergyman Vallon de Sarton finds the front part of the shrine on a silver platter, covered with convex crystal glass. He has to sell the dish in order to get to Picardy, where in 1204 he transports the head of the Baptist.

Since then, the shrine has been constantly located in the main city of Picardy, Amiens - and the magnificent Cathedral of Our Lady of Amiens is built here as a kind of precious ark to store the head, which immediately becomes a famous and revered shrine of France. Kings pilgrimage to her - Saint Louis, his son Philip the Brave - and others. Miracles come from her: there is a known case of the city of Amiens being healed from the plague in the 17th century through prayers before the head of John the Baptist. Also, the French even developed a tradition of making peace near the shrine.

In 1958, a large pathological examination of the relic was carried out, which was carried out by famous professors of anatomy, pharmacy, surgery, and dentistry. Experts have found that this part of the head is much more ancient than the bone of a medieval man. The face type itself was defined as Mediterranean. It was also found that the age of the person to whom this part of the head belonged was between 25 and 40 years. In addition, the mark from the blow with a dagger was clearly visible on the head. And as you know, when the head of the Baptist went to Herodias, she, being in a state of possessed rage, pierced the head with a dagger.

We cannot state with certainty the authenticity of one or another part of the head of St. John the Baptist, but so far not a single fact has been found on the front part of the shrine located in Amiens that would contradict the fact that it could belong to John the Baptist.

By the way, St. Demetrius of Rostov also mentions the presence of the head of John the Baptist in Amiens in his Lives, which means that already in the 17th century, Orthodox pilgrimages were also made to the Amiens chapter.

In many holy images it is possible to see John the Baptist - a saint who is of great importance for all of Christianity and the Orthodox faith in particular. There is also a separate icon of John the Baptist, which is interesting due to its unique manner of painting and allows believers to deeply touch the figure of this prophet.

The Story of John the Baptist

The icon of this saint should be viewed precisely through the prism of his life, which was imbued with faith and filled with various miracles that the Lord gave. The story of Saint John begins before his birth, when the appearance of the Forerunner is predicted by Saint Malachi. This fact itself is quite surprising.

There is also a separate icon of the Conception of John the Baptist, which is suitable for veneration and prayer. Including those who want to have a child or get help in childbirth turn to her. After all, John was born to elderly and childless parents.

News of John's conception

From history, you can find out that the prophet was the son of a noble priest Zechariah and righteous Elizabeth. As Evangelist Luke says, Zechariah was told that a son, Archangel Gabriel, had been born to him, but the priest did not believe this miracle and, as a result, was speechless until the end of his days, as he showed lack of faith. Elizabeth, in turn, hid her pregnancy, avoiding ridicule, although by that time her sister Anna had also given birth at an old age and, by the way, gave birth to the Mother of God.

Only after the Mother of God announced the conception of the Savior, Elizabeth revealed her pregnancy, and then gave birth. The icon of the Nativity of John the Baptist, which is also in many churches, is dedicated to this event. A relative of Jesus lived not far from Jerusalem near Hebron, where his parents were from.

Birth and feat

During the massacre of all newborn babies in Holy Bethlehem, John miraculously managed to escape a terrible death. Thanking the Lord for the gift of life, the prophet went into the desert, deciding to devote himself to great fasting and prayer. It is thanks to this that the icons of John the Baptist, the Angel of the Desert and similar subjects appear. They contain the ideal of spiritual asceticism and renunciation of the goods of this world. To be more precise, the plot of the marked icon refers to the words of Christ, who called John an Angel who clears the way for him.

He always wore rough clothes, held in place by a leather belt, and ate only the honey of wild bees and locusts (a genus of locust or a type of bean). He lived like this, waiting in the wings. And it came on his thirtieth birthday, when the Lord called him to preach to the Jewish people. It was from that moment that his ministry began next to Jesus Christ.

The activity of John the Baptist was very original, although formally it remained within the framework of the Jewish religion of that time. He baptized not only Gentiles who wanted to convert to the Jewish faith (as was customary in those days), but also born Jews. As the prophet himself said, only being born a Jew is not enough to be a true son of Abraham; if you look more deeply, it becomes clear.

John opened the way for the New Testament, carried out a kind of reformation of faith and appealed to people so that they would again find righteousness, without remaining captives of a frozen tradition.

Baptism and beheading

Many believers saw the icon of John in the image of the Baptism of the Lord, where the prophet actually performs his main function of baptizing Christ. However, even after this, John continued to act and preach and suffered martyrdom, just like many of the first Christians.

At that time, King Herod took his brother’s woman as his wife, and this fact was considered bad. Many condemned such cohabitation, and Saint John also did not consider such behavior worthy of a king. Herod himself did not like the reproach, and as a result John was locked up.

Once at a feast, Salome, the daughter of Herodias (Herod’s wife), delighted those present with her dance. She pleased Herod and he ordered to ask for anything, the request was the head of John the Baptist on a platter - an icon depicting this image is also revered in Orthodoxy. The celebration of this day refers to the beginning of the church year and also marks the transition to the era of the New Testament, because after the death of the prophet, who was considered the last, the period of the new Kingdom commanded by Christ began.

Prayers before the image and help

The icon of John the Baptist helps every person to successfully cope with any work and fulfill his duty with dignity!

Throughout the year there are many days of veneration of the icons of St. John:

October 6 - conception of John the Baptist;
July 7 - Nativity of the Prophet;
September 11 - beheading;
March 9 - in memory of the first and second finding of the head;
June 7 - the third discovery of the head of the prophet.

Prayer to the Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord John

Baptist of Christ, preacher of repentance, do not despise me who repents, but copulating with the heavenly ones, pray to the Master for me, unworthy, sad, weak and sad, in many the sorrow of the fallen, troubled by the stormy thoughts of my mind. Because I am a den of evil deeds, I have no end to sinful customs, because my mind is nailed down by earthly things. What will I do? We don't know. And to whom shall I resort, that my soul may be saved? Only to you, Saint John, give the same name of grace, for you are before the Lord through the Mother of God, greater than all who were born, for you were deemed worthy to touch the top of King Christ, who takes away sins peace, Lamb of God. Pray to him for my sinful soul, so that from now on, in the first ten hours, I will bear a good burden and accept recompense with the last. To her, the Baptist of Christ, the honest Forerunner, the extreme Prophet, the first martyr in grace, the teacher of fasters and hermits, the teacher of purity and the close friend of Christ! I pray to you, I come running to you: do not deny me from your intercession, but raise me up, cast down by many sins. Renew my soul with repentance, as with the second baptism, since you are the ruler of both: with baptism you wash away ancestral sin, and with repentance you cleanse every bad deed. Cleanse me, defiled by my sins, and force me to enter, even if nothing bad enters, into the Kingdom of Heaven. Amen.

The story of the honest head of John the Baptist - she had three acquisitions on her account - is not very simple and, moreover, is still not fully understood. Italy, France, Syria, Greece, Armenia: each of these countries claims that they have the original head of John the Baptist. I’ll tell you what arguments the scientific world gives in favor of this or that shrine.

The meaning of John the Baptist has always been very important for believers. After the Mother of God, this is the saint to whom the largest number of church holidays is assigned, and in addition, this is the only saint whose Christmas is celebrated by the Church. Particular attention is paid to the Baptist in the Gospel, and many contemporaries noted that in the 30s of the 1st century John the Baptist was a very famous saint who caused a wide resonance.

Therefore, the relics of St. John the Baptist have always been of great importance, and his head was considered as a special, very significant shrine, which is why all three acquisitions of the head are celebrated in the Church. Indeed, there is much evidence that the true chapter, or part of the chapter, is located, for example, in the monastery of St. Sylvester in Rome, in the Umayyad mosque in Damascus (by the way, the Baptist is revered not only by Christians, but also by Muslims - as a great righteous man ), in Nagorno-Karabakh in Armenia, on Mount Athos.

But if we are talking about the most likely location of the shrine, then this is, of course, the Cathedral of Notre Dame in France. For the simple reason that of all the above places, only here a large and high-quality study of the shrine was carried out, and it is also known that this particular part of the chapter (and only the front part of the chapter is kept in the Amiens Cathedral) has a clear historical path.

Cathedral in Amiens

The fate of the holy head is long-suffering. They cut off the Baptist's head on the orders of Herod's wife Herodias: The Prophet denounced Herod for his illegal marriage to his brother's wife. Herodias's daughter Salome, having seduced Herod and the guests by dancing, in response to Herod's enthusiastic offer to ask for what she wanted, on the advice of her mother, demanded the head of the Forerunner-accuser on a platter.

Mad Herod mercilessly cuts off your head, which exposes his vile character: Christ, the most blessed, makes you, as the Baptist, the head of the Church, the Creator of all, the Lord, and the Deliverer of all.

Herodias pierced the already lifeless head with a dagger, and then buried the head next to the palace. After some time, Herod and Herodias decided to check whether the head was in place: not finding it, they decided that the Forerunner had been resurrected, and that Christ was the resurrected Forerunner.

First the head stayed in Olivet, then with a poor man from Emesa, then in Constantinople. During the period of iconoclasm, the head was hidden until the veneration of holy icons was resumed. But now the last times of Byzantium are coming, the fall of Constantinople under Turkish rule is not far away, and Hagia Sophia will soon become a mosque. 1204 The city is plundered by the crusaders. I will repeat a thought that has been expressed more than once - having seen the fate of Christian churches of the first centuries on the territory of the former Byzantium, one can even be glad that the crusaders were here before the Gentiles - at least some of the Christian shrines have survived to our times.

This is how, in one of the ruins of a palace, Canon Vallon de Sarton finds a dish on which, under glass, is the front part of a head. There is a hole above the eyebrow. On the dish there is an inscription that this head is of John the Baptist, and the hole is from the dagger blow of Herodias on the severed head.

What shall we call you, prophet? Is it an angel? Is it an apostle? or a martyr? Angela, you have lived as if you were bodiless. Apostle, as if you taught languages. Martyr, because your head was cut off for Christ. Pray to Him to have mercy on our souls.

Canon Vallon de Sarton decided to bring the head of the Forerunner to Picardy - and in 1206, the bishop of the city, on the third Sunday of Nativity Lent, solemnly greeted the great shrine. For the sake of the head of the Forerunner, the construction of the cathedral in Amiens begins - this is the greatest Gothic monument in Europe.

During the era of the revolution, they wanted to send the head to the cemetery, but the mayor of the city, under pain of execution, kept the relics at home, and only in 1945, when the threat of occupation had finally passed, was the head finally returned to the cathedral

Another part of the head of the Forerunner is now kept in the Umayyad mosque in Damascus - in the tomb of John the Baptist. Saint Demetrius of Rostov, describing the discovery of the head of John the Baptist, indicated the location of the holy head in Amiens: “... The venerable head of the Forerunner, transferred a second time to Constantinople, was first placed in the royal chambers, and then part of it in the Studii Forerunner Monastery; in this monastery the top of the chapter was seen by the pilgrim Anthony in 1200; the other part of the chapter was in Petra in the monastery of Prodromus, it was transferred by the crusaders to Amiens in France, part of it was transferred to Rome and is in the church of Pope Sylvester. Other parts are located in the Athos Monastery of Dionysius and the Ugrovlahia Monastery of Kalui.”

I will move on to the moment of the third finding of the head of the Baptist. During the period of iconoclastic persecution, it was decided to hide the head of John the Baptist - and at the beginning of the 9th century it was transported to Komani (a city located not far from modern Sukhumi).

Place of the 3rd Finding of the Head of John the Baptist Kaman. Abkhazia.

Chapter of John the Baptist

In Amiens Cathedral
In Amiens Cathedral

Having risen from the earth, the Forerunner's head emits rays of incorruption, healing the faithful: from above the Angel gathers a multitude, and then convenes the human race, unanimously sending glory to Christ God.

MOSCOW, June 7— RIA Novosti, Alexey Mikheev. The last prophet of the Old Testament, John the Baptist, predicted the coming of Jesus Christ into the world and baptized him in the Jordan River. But then, by order of King Herod, John’s head was cut off, and since then, Muslims, Christians, and scientists have been arguing about where exactly it is located. Today the Orthodox Church celebrates its third discovery. About the history of the shrine - in the material of RIA Novosti.

Church archaeologists have a joke: “Ten heads of John the Baptist are known in the world, but only three of them are authentic.” Indeed, Muslim Damascus, Catholic Amiens and Rome, Orthodox Athos and even Armenian Gandzasar are fighting for the right to own the “most correct” shrine. The discovery (miraculous finding) of the prophet's head is recorded in the Christian church canon three times.

Risen and became Christ

Saint John denounced the king of Galilee, Herod, for demonstratively marrying his niece Herodias, who at that time was already married to his brother. Adultery was considered among the Jews to be one of the most terrible sins, punishable by painful death. John's rebuke enraged Herodias. According to the Gospel story, her daughter Salome, on the ruler’s birthday, “danced and pleased Herod and those who reclined with him,” and he promised to fulfill any of her requests. After consulting with her mother, Salome asked for the head of the prophet, and the king fulfilled his oath. Herodias did not allow her trophy to be buried humanly and simply buried it near the palace - as some sources claim, having previously abused it. The saint’s disciples secretly took the body and buried it.

And then the detective story begins. The pious wife of one of the king’s servants witnessed how Herodias treated the prophet’s head, dug it up and reburied it on the Mount of Olives. And when rumors about the preaching and miracles of Jesus reached the royal court, Herod, just in case, decided to check whether John’s head was in place and, not finding it, became confident in his guess that Christ was the resurrected John the Baptist.

The Potter and the Heretic

And so, years later, a Christian nobleman builds a church on the mountain and discovers a vessel with a relic. All his life he carefully preserves the found head of the saint, and before his death he hides it in the temple he built. But the years pass, the church deteriorates, collapses, and the head of John the Baptist is again considered lost.

And after many years, two wandering monks find her, put her in a bag and take her with them, but on the way, tired, they allow the bag to be carried by a completely unfamiliar potter. And then, as legend claims, the Forerunner himself appears to him and orders him to leave the careless monks, taking the shrine with him. Before his death, the potter bequeathed to give the relic to a pious Christian, but it, having passed through many hands, ended up in the hands of a completely ungodly person - the heretic Eustathius walked around the world and healed the sick with the shrine, passing off the miracle as his own. And when the deception was revealed, he buried the head of the prophet in a cave.

To the west!

In 452, the relic was found by monks and solemnly transferred to the imperial capital - Constantinople. However, during the iconoclastic persecutions, when thousands of shrines were destroyed by order of the authorities, the head of the prophet was secretly taken to the territory of modern Abkhazia. And she comes back almost four centuries later - since then Christians have celebrated this day as the “Third Finding of the Honest Head of John the Baptist.”

“This is where the story about the head of St. John usually ends, because further history is connected with the Catholic West. After returning to Constantinople, the relic was placed in the court church, but part of it somehow ended up nearby, in the Studite Baptist Monastery, where it was found in 1200 year was seen by the pilgrim Anthony, of which there is written evidence. However, already in 1204 it was transferred by the crusaders to Amiens in northern France," says priest Maxim Massalitin, rector of the Church of the Resurrection in Rabat (Morocco).

The Tomb of Christ, the Grail and Pilate: Can Science Convince Skeptics?Earlier, Western media reported that for the first time in 500 years, archaeologists removed a marble slab from the burial site of Christ in the Jerusalem Church of the Holy Sepulcher to find out what the tomb originally looked like.

In addition, the lives of the saints mention three more places where parts of the relics ended up - Athos, Italy and a certain “Ugrovlahian monastery” somewhere on the territory of modern Romania.

The explanation is simple: on April 13, 1204, the crusaders captured and plundered Constantinople. Canon Vallon de Sarton from Pikinia found in the ruins of one of the palaces a case in which there was a silver dish with the Greek inscription “John the Baptist”. On it, under a glass cover, were the remains of a human head without a lower jaw and with a small hole above the left eyebrow - according to legend, Herodias, in her hearts, dealt a strong blow to the severed head of the saint. De Sarton solemnly transferred the shrine to Picardy. Later she will be placed in a cathedral specially built for her in Amiens.

An extra jaw, or How to rob a saint

In 1789, a revolution occurs in France. All over the country, relics are confiscated from churches, and all more or less precious church utensils are confiscated by the state. The Revolutionary Convention removes all decorations from the head of St. John the Baptist, and orders it to be sent to the cemetery. However, the mayor of the city, Louis-Alexandre Lecouve, secretly returns to the treasury and, risking his life, takes the shrine to his home. And after the end of the revolutionary persecution of the church, the head of St. John in 1816 was returned to the Amiens Cathedral. Later, a missing jaw is found in Verdun, but an authoritative commission recognizes it as a much later artifact.

“This ends the modern chronicle of the head of John the Baptist. Many Orthodox Christians come to France, but not everyone knows how many shrines the French land still preserves, despite the outrage of revolutions and the oblivion of the Christian past. It is joyful that now the head of the saint John the Baptist, not only Orthodox prayer services are performed, but also liturgies,” says Father Maxim.

However, in Damascus, inside one of the three main shrines of the Islamic world, the Umayyad Mosque, there is the burial place of the Prophet Yahya - this is what Muslims call John the Baptist. They stumbled upon it by chance during construction, and local Christians assured the caliph that this was the ancient tomb of the prophet. Before the war began in 2011, the white marble tomb attracted thousands of pilgrims from across the Middle East. You could throw a note, a photograph inside it, or “donate” money to the prophet. In Syria they firmly believe that the head of the prophet who baptized Christ is inside.

“O Yahya! Hold fast to the Scripture - We gave him wisdom in infancy, as well as compassion from Us and purity. He was pious, respectful to his parents and was neither proud nor disobedient” - this is how the Koran describes the last prophet of the Old Testament.

In the meantime, daily prayers to the saint at his honorable head are served in the Church of St. Sylvester in Rome, and in the Great Lavra of Mount Athos, and even in Nagorno-Karabakh - the head of the Baptist of Christ, cut off at a drunken feast, has become one of the world's main shrines.

John the Baptist is one of the main figures of Orthodox Christianity. He is worshiped by believers all over the world. It was he who laid his right hand on the Head of the Savior. It completes the history of the Old Testament Church and opens the milestone of the New Testament.

And the miraculous icon of the Baptist John the Baptist rests for many years in the St. John the Baptist Convent.

Brief biography

Six months before the birth of God's Savior, John the Baptist appeared to the world. He was a late, long-awaited and begged-for child in the family.

The young man spent his youth in an ascetic lifestyle; he lived in the desert for a long time. And at the age of 30, he began preaching and called people to faith and repentance in the Judean desert. His sermons were terse, but had great power: all of Judea came out to him and received Baptism in the waters of the Jordan.

Read about the Baptist of the Lord John:

John appealed to the fact that baptism from him is a preparation for receiving the Savior Jesus Christ. It is He who will soon come, take upon himself all the sins of humanity and destroy hell.

In his preaching works, the saint was not afraid to expose the sinful relationship of King Herod with his brother’s wife Herodias. For this he was taken into custody in the fortress and awaited his imminent execution. But the king was afraid of possible popular anger, because people revered him as a prophet. Herod's fear overpowered the hatred of Herodias, who was trying to kill the saint by any means.

One day she had a chance: on Herod’s name day, Herodias’ daughter Salome entertained the guests with sophisticated dances. The king really liked his niece’s dancing, and he invited her to ask him for everything she wanted. The mother persuaded her daughter, and Salome demanded the head of John the Baptist on a platter from Herod.

A squire was immediately sent to the prisoner’s dungeon, he beheaded the Baptist and gave his honest head to the girl on a platter. This day is celebrated annually in the liturgical calendar as the feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist.

Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord John

Iconography

In the images, John the Baptist is depicted as a very thin man of middle age (approximately 32 years old). His Jewish-type face, dark from constant exposure to the sun, emphasizes the holiness and righteousness of the man. John's beard is medium-length, black, shaggy. The hair on the head is divided into strands. Clothes made of camel wool, tied up with a leather belt.

John's right hand is a blessing, and his left holds a scroll, which has the meaning of calling people to speedy repentance. On the man’s left shoulder there is a long Orthodox cross that looks like a staff. It means the imminent death on the Cross of the Creator of the World, Jesus Christ.

On the very first icon, painted in the 6th century, the saint was depicted alone, in full growth, in a hair shirt and with a scroll in his hand. At the top of the image, as well as on the left and right sides, there are medallions with the faces of the Mother of God and Jesus.

In the 11th century, icon painters created an image of John the Baptist, in which he is depicted bending towards Christ in prayer. He stands on the right side of the Savior. Later, icons were created where he is located on the left side of Christ.

In the 13th century, the image of the “Angel of the Desert” was painted, where the Baptist is depicted with wings. This image means that God the Father said that he was sending His Angel to earth so that he would clear the way for the Savior of the World.

What can an icon help with?

For many centuries, prayer books have asked John the Baptist:

about help in finding a job;
about protection from the intrigues of colleagues and the machinations of an evil leader;
about protection from lies and slander of enemies;
about healing head diseases and other ailments;
about healing thoughts;
about choosing the right path in life.

Advice! It is customary to give an icon of the Baptist to men who received the name John at birth or in the Sacrament of Baptism.

The saint benefactors beekeepers and is considered their patron. Also, prayer in front of the icon protects against headaches.

“John the Baptist. Christmas". Temple of Veniamin of Petrograd, Moscow

Prayer Rules

Prayer to John the Baptist is an important vocabulary for Orthodox people. It is in it that love for Christ, great faith and humility are contained, giving strength and hope for salvation to every person.

You should pray alone or with the whole family, with a lit lamp or candle. A family is a small church, so it is recommended to offer prayers on special days and before a festive feast.

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