It would seem that the event that is remembered on this day is sad and even mournful: the greatest of the prophets was executed in prison. The Church calls St. John “Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord.” Christ Himself testified of him in the Gospel of Matthew: “Truly, I say to you, of those born of women, no greater than John the Baptist has risen.” This is probably why the name “Ivan” from time immemorial has been the most beloved and common in Our Country.
When is celebrated in 2022
Became a great church celebration and the day on September 11 – The beheading of John the Baptist will be celebrated in 2022. This holiday is not among the most important, but among our people it was revered and celebrated in a special, solemn and decorous way. Even those believers who are not particularly inclined to abstain from animal food for a year impose a strict fast on this day. This custom of self-restraint is a tribute to the ascetic life of John the Baptist. It is known that, living in the desert, the prophet ate wild honey and stunted vegetation. And one more thing: in part, fasting on the day of the Beheading of John the Baptist is also directed against the sin of gluttony and drunkenness, since the Baptist of Jesus was killed by order of King Herod during a drunken feast.
History
What happened then, a little less than two thousand years ago?
The execution of John the Baptist was the result of a family drama that had been escalating for a long time in the house of Herod Antipas, the ruler of Judea (called the king in the Gospel). He had a brother, Philip, who, shortly before those fateful events, sold his part of the inheritance – a quarter of the territory of Judea – to Herod Antipas, after which he left with his wife Herodias for Rome. There, Philip bought a rich house and began to live for his own pleasure as a private person. But Herodias, who had time to taste royal honors in her homeland, could not reconcile herself to the role of an ordinary, albeit very rich, townswoman. And when Herod Antipas came to Rome on his own business and settled in his brother’s house, Herodias managed to seduce her brother-in-law. Indeed, in the eyes of this conceited woman, Herod Antipas was, although small, completely dependent on Rome, but he was a king. And the weak-willed Herod Antipas secretly took his brother’s wife with him to Jerusalem.
What had happened was discussed in Judea at all crossroads, and the loudest denunciation of the sinful act of the king was none other than the Prophet, respected by the people – John the Baptist. Herod Antipas, under the pressure of Herodias, arrested John and imprisoned him in the palace dungeon, but at the same time he did not stop revering the Baptist as an intelligent and holy man. He often talked with his guest-captive in the garden, and, of course, all this worried Herodias very much. Her position under the person of the king could not be strong while John the Baptist had influence on Herod Antipas.
And then the birthday of Herod Antipas came, the guests gathered for a feast in his mansions. Herodias conceived and carried out an insidious plan: when the king and other feasters got drunk, she released her daughter Salome, whom she had brought from Rome, before them. A twelve-year-old girl began to dance in front of Herod Antipas, and he, having grown mad, promised her any reward for such entertainment. “Ask for the head of John the Baptist,” Herodias told her daughter. Hearing such a wild request from the child, the king, as it is said in the Gospel, was saddened, but not wanting to lose dignity in front of the guests, he ordered the guard to cut off John the Baptist’s head and bring it to the banquet hall on a platter. Thus, the biggest crime in the history of mankind “on a drunken case” was accomplished.
You can, of course, mention that the mother and daughter paid dearly for their deeds – they ended up in exile in the mountains of Spain, where they perished in poverty. But an important lesson that believers learned from that distant and sad event is that a person needs to watch himself all the time, not lose control over his actions, live with his own mind and be able to admit and correct his mistakes – including publicly.