The Nativity of the Honorable and Glorious Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist John

The Nativity of the Honorable and Glorious Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist John is the event that our Orthodox Church celebrates today, June 24. Today, we also commemorate the memory of the Holy New Martyr Panaghiotis.

It is well known that, according to Orthodox tradition, the birthday of saints is considered to be the day of their repose, because on that day they depart for the Kingdom of God. Thus, they are "born" into the Kingdom of God. The only exceptions are the birthdays of Jesus Christ, the Most Holy Mother of God, and Saint John the Baptist, because their births represent links in the chain of the divine economy (that is, God's love for mankind) for the salvation of the world.

The Forerunner John, about whom the Prophet Isaiah wrote that he would be a voice crying out in the wilderness and would prepare the people for the coming of the Messiah, was born miraculously to elderly parents— the priest Zechariah and Elizabeth, who was barren.

The news of his birth, as well as the name of the child, were announced to Zechariah by an angel while he was in the temple. John the Baptist was born only six months before Jesus Christ, whom he acknowledged as his Lord, leaping for joy in his mother Elizabeth’s womb when she was visited by her relative, the Most Holy Mother of God, who came to announce the miracle of Jesus’ conception in her own womb.

Saint Theodore the Studite wrote a Homily on the Nativity of the Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist John, in which, to show the greatness of the Forerunner, he emphasizes: “...All those (the prophets who preceded him in the Old Testament), beloved, do not reach the greatness of John. For some of them lived before the giving of the written Law, and others after it. But John, the son of the priest Zechariah and the wondrous Elizabeth, the flower that adorned Christ’s entrance into the world, rose and blossomed in the period between the Law and Grace. The spiritual star rose, heralding the appearance of the Sun of righteousness. The soldier ran ahead, announcing the coming of the King of all creation. The guide of Christ’s Bride, the Church, came, proclaiming the imminent arrival of the Bridegroom, Christ. And while the other prophets prophesied or performed miracles many years after their birth, the Honorable Forerunner was filled with the Holy Spirit and was shown to be a miracle-worker even from his mother’s womb.”