The great popularity of St John the Baptist
Areader from Leicestershire wonders why so many churches are dedicated to St John the Baptist, who might be regarded as a Jewish prophet rather than a Christian martyr.
He is right that there are plenty of churches dedicated to St John the Baptist. Of the 16,000 or so Church of England churches, 573 are reckoned to be dedicated to him, the sixth most popular saint after St Mary (the Virgin), with more than 2,000, St Peter (1,327), St Michael (816), St Andrew (801) and St Paul (667).
The figures are complicated by multiple and uncertain dedications, but the Baptist has about twice as many churches as St John the Evangelist or Apostle, though it is worth remembering that an ordinary parish church would have a large crucifix over the screen marking off the chancel, with the Virgin Mary depicted on one side of the cross and St John the Apostle on the other. Both
Johns were central figures in Christian belief.
In the Eastern Church, John the Baptist is the more visible of the two Johns.
He is depicted on the icon-screen (iconostasis) that separates off the sanctuary where the holy liturgy is performed. He may appear more than once, for St John is present in the image called the Deesis in which Christ enthroned in majesty is flanked by the Virgin Mary on his right and by St John the Baptist on his left. The figure of St John pictured here is from a Deesis at the church of St Blaise in Novgorod.
The Greeks know
St John the Baptist as the Prodromos, the Forerunner, as he is called in the Gospels, and this title in Greek is the label by which he may be identified in icons. He is represented as ascetic, often thin, dressed in shaggy camel hair with his own hair unkempt, as befitted his desert life. Another icon of St John is also to be seen on the iconostasis among the series of images representing the Twelve Great Feasts, for it is he of course who is shown baptising Jesus in the Jordan. In that encounter it is Jesus who brings grace and efficacy to the waters of baptism. John the Baptist has a foot in both camps: the Old Testament and the New. Of him Jesus said: “Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”
As Forerunner, John draws attention to Jesus as the Lamb of God; but before Jesus comes into his glory, John has been beheaded.
Prophets of the Old Testament are counted as saints by Christians, though it is true that they figure less prominently in the liturgical year. There is a fine church of St Moses in Venice, and the Carmelite Order fosters devotion to St Elijah.
But St John the Baptist is central to the immediate historical narrative of Christianity.
Unusually, he has two feasts in the Western Church (there are more in the East). One is August 29, his beheading, which, as with all martyrs, is a dies natalis, a birthday into the heavenly life. But, unlike other saints, the earthly birth of John is also marked, on June 24, six months before the birthday of Jesus at Christmas. This is the traditional Midsummer’s Day, on the eve of which bonfires were lit.
Most saints are not given birthday feasts, for their Christian life begins with their baptism. But in the Gospel account, John (even before he received his name) leaps in his mother Elizabeth’s womb when she is greeted by the Virgin Mary, three months pregnant with Jesus. This event at the Visitation was interpreted as the sanctifying of John before his birth.