Herod Antipas, son of the elder Herod, who was the slayer of the children of Bethlehem at the time of the birth of the Lord Jesus, was ruler of Galilee at the time when John the Baptist was preaching. This Herod was married to the daughter of Aretas, an Arabian prince. But Herod, an evil sprout of an evil root, put away his lawful wife and unlawfully took as his concubine Herodias , the wife of his brother Philip, who was still living. John the Baptist stood up against this lawlessness and strongly denounced Herod who then cast John into prison.

In Saint Matthew’s Gospel (14:1-12) we read that during a banquet in Herod’s court in Sebastia in Galilee, Salome, the daughter of Herodias and Philip, danced before the guests. The drunken Herod was so taken by this dance that he promised Salome that he would give her whatever she asked of him, even though it be half of his kingdom. Being persuaded by her mother, Salome asked for the head of John the Baptist. Herod gave the order and John was beheaded in prison and his head brought to him on a platter.

John’s disciples took the body of their teacher by night and honorably buried it, but Herodias pierced the tongue of John with a needle in many places and buried the head in an unclean place. His head was later recovered, and a part is kept at the Romanian monastery Prodromou on Mount Athos.

The death of St. John occurred before the Pascha [Passover] but its celebration was established on August 29/September 11 to commemorate the consecration of a church which Emperor Constantine and Empress Helena had built over his grave in Sebastia. In this church the relics of John’s disciples, Eliseus and Audius, were also placed.