The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, as recorded in the Gospels of Matthew (14:1–12) and Mark (6:14–29), marks the martyric death of the Forerunner of Christ in the year 32 AD. After baptizing Jesus, John was imprisoned by Herod Antipas for condemning his unlawful union with Herodias, his brother’s wife. At Herod’s birthday feast, Herodias’s daughter Salome danced before the guests and, prompted by her mother, requested John’s head on a platter. Though reluctant, Herod consented to the execution out of pride and fear of losing face before his guests. According to tradition, John’s severed head continued to rebuke Herod, and while Herodias desecrated the prophet’s tongue, the pious Joanna secretly buried the head on the Mount of Olives. His body was later retrieved and buried by his disciples in Sebastia.

God’s judgment fell upon those responsible. Salome met a gruesome death, falling through ice in a manner that echoed her dance before Herod, and her head was brought to her mother just as John’s had been. Herod was later defeated in battle by King Aretas, exiled by Emperor Caligula, and died in disgrace. The Church honors the Beheading of John the Baptist as both a feast and a solemn fast, marked by traditions of abstaining from flat plates, knives, or round foods. This day also commemorates Orthodox soldiers who died in battle, a remembrance established during Russia’s wars in the 18th century.

Troparion — Tone 2

The memory of the righteous is celebrated with hymns of praise, / but the Lord’s testimony is sufficient for you, O Forerunner. / You were shown in truth to be the most honorable of the prophets, / for you were deemed worthy to baptize in the streams of the Jordan Him whom they foretold. / Therefore, having suffered for the truth with joy, / you proclaimed to those in hell God who appeared in the flesh, / who takes away the sin of the world, / and grants us great mercy.

Kontakion — Tone 5

The glorious beheading of the Forerunner, / became an act of divine dispensation, / for he preached to those in hell the coming of the Savior. / Let Herodias lament, for she entreated lawless murder, / loving not the law of God, nor eternal life, / but that which is false and temporal.