CategoryWritings

  There are few saints more loved in the art and imagination of the Eastern Orthodox Church than John the Baptist. Wherever Clare and I have walked in the Greek islands and on the mainland, and in Cyprus, churches dedicated to St. John seem to have sprung up. So it is worth pausing for a moment and asking “why this devotion to John the Baptist” which is displayed not only in the number of church dedications, but in the traditional arrangement of the iconostasis, the icon screen in front of the altar, where the arrangement of icons places John the Baptist on the lefthand of the figure of Jesus, as it were pointing to him. With what then is John pointing ? With nothing less than his whole life, from the beginning to the end, from miraculous birth to the death of a courageous martyr, witnessing to truth and justice against King Herod Agrippa. If you look at the icon of St. John heading our service sheet, you will see the typically hairy and ascetic saint has been equipped with a...