Saint John the Forerunner and the Epiphany of the Lord

Saint John the Forerunner (or Saint John the Baptist) is one of the most significant heroes of the Feast of the Epiphany, the prominent event celebrated this week in the Orthodox Church. Traditionally, this feast also has a second name, Epiphany. According to the Gospel, at the age of about 30, Jesus Christ came to St. John who had already been baptizing people in the waters of the Jordan River for some time for the forgiveness of sins (Mt 3. 13-15; Mk 1. 4; Lk 3. 3). Christ asked Saint John to baptize Him, and it was after the rite that the Epiphany took place. Those present heard a voice from Heaven, declaring Christ to be the Son of God, and saw the Holy Spirit descending on Him in the form of a white dove (Matthew 3:13-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22; John 1:29-34). The described event was one of the first references to Christ as the promised Messiah to mankind. It is this moment of the first appearance of the Lord in three hypostases that has been traditionally used in both Western and Eastern Christian painting to depict the scene of the Baptism of the Lord.

Psalter of Eleanor of Aquitaine, ca. 1185. National Library of the Netherlands.

Saint John the Forerunner and the Epiphany of the Lord

Traditionally, in the Orthodox calendar, on the day following such significant feast masses, the memory of a secondary person is also celebrated separately, and in the case of the Baptism of the Lord, it is, of course, Saint John the Baptist. The account of his life is contained both in the New Testament and in the whole corpus of early Christian apocryphal texts. According to the Gospel of Luke, Saint John was born into the family of the priest Zacharias and his wife Elizabeth, a relative of the Virgin Mary. It is not clear from the Gospel text whether Christ and Saint John communicated with each other before the Baptism of the Lord described above, although the same Gospel of Luke gives a touching episode: John “cried out” in Elizabeth’s bosom at the approach of the Virgin Mary who was carrying Christ.

The ministry of Saint John the Forerunner, who prepared the earthly mission of Christ and preached “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4; Luke 3:3), was connected with the Judean desert and the banks of the Jordan, which is why he is often compared to the Prophet Elijah. According to the description of the Evangelists, he wore clothes made of camel’s wool and fed on what the desert gave him—honey and acrides. Such a severe and ascetic way of life also connected Saint John the Baptist with the Old Testament Prophetic tradition, the last representative of which he was from the point of view of the Christians. It is in this way, as a prophet and ascetic, that Saint John the Baptist is traditionally depicted in icons and frescoes, beginning with the oldest known example, a 6th-century icon brought to Kyiv in the 19th century, in accordance with the will of Porphyrius Uspensky who found it in his expedition to Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai.

Baptism of Christ with the Gospel story about the temptation of Jesus. 19th century. Palekh.

In many later medieval icons and frescoes, numerous episodes of the life of Saint John the Baptist are given: his miraculous rescue from the beating of infants at the order of King Herod and scenes of his preachings and baptism of people. However, the scenes of his martyrdom at the order of Herod Antipas, son of King Herod the Great, stand out most often. The conflict was over the marriage of Herod Antipas and his brother’s wife Herodias, which the saint condemned and denounced. It is believed that Antipas did not want to kill Saint John because he considered him a prophet and listened to his words. However, at one of the feasts, he publicly promised that he would fulfill any wish of the daughter of his beloved Herodias for the dance she gave to the guests. As a reward, the girl, instructed by her mother, asked for the head of John the Baptist to be brought to her. The beheading of Saint John the Baptist and the subsequent miraculous finding of his Head are often included in the pictorial hagiographic cycles of the saint and have even become a separate subject of icons.

Thus, Saint John the Forerunner combined in his earthly life both the role of the last Old Testament prophet, who anticipated the earthly mission of Christ, and the fate of the Apostles, Christ’s disciples, and the first preachers.