St. John the Baptist

St. John the Baptist (Ancient Greek: Ἰωάννης ὁ βαπτιστής, Ioannēs ho baptistēs or Ἰωάννης ὁ βαπτίζων, Ioannēs ho baptizōn, known as the prophet Yahya in the Qur’an) was a Jewish itinerant preacher  in the early first century AD and is revered as a major religious figure along with Christianity, also in Islam, the Bahá’í Faith and Mandaeism. He is called a prophet by all of these traditions, and honoured as a saint in many Christian traditions.

St. John the Baptist used baptism as the central sacrament of his messianic movement. Most scholars agree that St. John the Baptist baptized Jesus. Scholars generally believe Jesus was a follower or disciple of John  and several New Testament accounts report that some of Jesus’ early followers had previously been followers of John. John the Baptist is also mentioned by the Jewish historian Josephus. Some scholars maintain that St. John the Baptist was influenced by the semi-ascetic Essenes, who expected an apocalypse and practiced rituals corresponding strongly with baptism, although no direct evidence substantiates this.

According to the New Testament, John anticipated a messianic figure greater than himself, and Jesus was the one whose coming John foretold. Christians commonly refer to John as the precursor or forerunner of Jesus, since John announces Jesus’ coming. John is also identified with the prophet Elijah.

The burial-place of John the Baptist was traditionally said to be at the Nabi Yahya Mosque (Saint John the Baptiste Mosque) in Sebaste in current Palestinian territories, and mention is made of his relics being honored there around the middle of the 4th century. The historians Rufinus and Theodoretus record that the shrine was desecrated under Julian the Apostate around 362, the bones being partly burned. A portion of the rescued relics were carried to Jerusalem, then to Alexandria, where on 27 May 395, they were laid in the basilica newly dedicated to the Forerunner on the former site of the temple of Serapis. The tomb at Sebaste continued, nevertheless, to be visited by pious pilgrims, and St. Jerome bears witness to miracles being worked there.

What became of the head of John the Baptist is difficult to determine. Nicephorus and Symeon Metaphrastes say that Herodias had it buried in the fortress of Machaerus (in accordance with Josephus). Other writers say that it was interred in Herod’s palace at Jerusalem; there it was found during the reign of Constantine I, and thence secretly taken to Emesa where it was concealed, the place remaining unknown for years, until it was manifested by revelation in 453. However, the decapitation cloth of St. John is kept at the Aachen Cathedral. The Coptic Christian Orthodox Church also claim to hold the relics of St. John the Baptist. These are to be found in a monastery in Lower Egypt between Cairo and Alexandria. It is possible, with permission from the monks, to see the original tomb where the remains were found.

• Several different locations claim to possess the severed head of John the Baptist. The current official place for the Catholic Church is the Shrine of Saint John the Baptiste (Nabi Yahya in Arabic) inside the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus;. The place was visited by Pope John Paul II in 2001 who “paused for a minute’s silent meditation at the tomb of St John the Baptist”. Previous to that the catholic Church used to believe that it was kept in the San Silvestro in Capite in Rome; and then that it was held by the Knights Templar at Amiens Cathedral in France (brought home by Wallon de Sarton from the Fourth Crusade in Constantinople), at Antioch in Turkey (fate uncertain). Other traditions assume that it was in Residenz Museum in Munich, Germany (official residence of the Wittelsbach rulers of Bavaria from 1385 to 1918). or even the parish church at Tenterden in Kent, where it was preserved up until the Reformation.

• The saint’s right hand, with which he baptised Jesus, is claimed to be in the Serbian Orthodox Cetinje monastery in Montenegro; Topkapi Palace in Istanbul;and also in the Romanian skete of the Forerunner on Mount Athos. The saint’s left hand is allegedly preserved in the Armenian Apostolic Church of St. John at Chinsurah, West Bengal, where each year on “Chinsurah Day” in January it blesses the Armenians of Calcutta.^[64] A crypt and relics said to be John’s and mentioned in 11th- and 16th-century manuscripts, were discovered in 1969 during restoration of the Church of St. Macarius at the Monastery of Saint Macarius the Great in Scetes, Egypt; Additional relics are claimed to reside in Gandzasar Monastery‘s Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, in Nagorno Karabakh.

Other obscure and surprising claim relates to the town of Halifax in West Yorkshire, United Kingdom, where the Baptist’s head appears on the official coat-of-arms. A legend first recorded in the late 16th century and reported in William Camden‘s Britannia accounts for the town’s place-name, as ‘halig’ (holy) and ‘fax’ (face), by stating that the first religious settlers of the district brought the ‘face’ of John the Baptist with them.
Also, in 2010, bones were discovered in the ruins of a Bulgarian church in the St. John the Forerunner Monastery (4th–17th centuries) on the Black Sea island of St. Ivan and two years later, after DNA and radio carbon testing proved the bones belonged to a Middle Eastern man who lived in the 1st century AD, scientists said that the remains could conceivably have belonged to John the Baptist. The remains, found in a reliquarium are presently kept in the Sts. Cyril and Methodius Cathedral in Sozopol.