Dr. Augustin Sokolovski
The third finding of the head of John the Baptist is connected with the life and work of Ignatius, Patriarch of Constantinople. He was born around 797 and died in 877. This means that in 2027, if God prolongs the existence of this world, October 23 according to the old calendar will mark exactly 1,150 years since his heavenly birth. Ignatius served as Patriarch twice, from 847 to 858 and from 867 to 877, until his death. His patriarchate was marked by a strict stance on the morals of the imperial court and a conciliatory stance toward the Church of Rome, with which Constantinople’s relations were exceptionally strained at that time. The latter, among other things, was caused by the anti-Latin stance of another holy patriarch of that time, Saint Photius (+896), as well as disputes over the canonical affiliation of the Bulgarian Church. Ignatius himself was the son of one of the emperors, Michael I Rangabe, who reigned from 811 to 813. This was a time when the Orthodox Church of Constantinople was just recovering from a period of iconoclasm that had lasted for over a century, with only a brief interruption, during which iconoclastic emperors persecuted icon venerators, monasteries were destroyed, and holy relics were desecrated. The causes and scope of these events are still being reconstructed by theologians and historians.
Hagiography states that during Ignatius’s first patriarchate, he had a vision revealing the location of the head of John the Baptist, which had previously been lost. The head was found in the city of Comana Pontica—the site of the martyrdom of Saint Basiliscus (+308) and later of John Chrysostom (+407)—and was transferred to Constantinople around the year 850. This is the historical context of the celebration of the Third Finding of the Head of John, which takes place at the very beginning of summer. Since the Church also celebrates the First and Second Finding of the Head in early spring—evidence that the Head was subsequently lost more than once—this means that, beyond its historical context, the Finding of the Head of John the Baptist has its own distinct symbolism and unique theology.
All three findings of the head of John the Baptist took place during the first millennium of Christian history, at apocalyptic and crisis-ridden moments. This teaches the Church, as the Community of Believers, to understand that the Finding of the Head should be viewed in parallel with another significant and similarly recurring finding of another great relic in history, namely, the Cross of the Lord. This event also occurred on three separate occasions. The cross was discovered by Saint Helena and then solemnly erected in Jerusalem; centuries later, it fell into the hands of the Persians, before finally being solemnly returned to the Orthodox Christians under Emperor Heraclius (610–641). Each time, this event took on an apocalyptic character, as it occurred within a historical context that foreshadowed something deeply prophetic and significant.
The head of John the Baptist is not merely a relic, nor simply a sacred object, but a fully-fledged hagiographic prototype and a prophetic sign. When John the Baptist was killed by Herod, as the Gospel attests, his body was buried by his disciples. The head, however, fell into the hands of Herodias and continued its prophetic journey. It became the prototype for a whole cohort—numbering more than a hundred—of saints known as “kefalophoroi,” that is, literally, “head-bearers.” They were martyred by beheading, then literally took their heads in their hands, walked a certain distance in this manner, and some even uttered a prophecy. Such were Denis of Paris, the martyr Severinus (+175), the martyr Gaudens of Occitania (+475), and many others, including the Russian saint Cornelius of Pskov-Pechersk (1501–1570). In Dostoevsky’s great novel, it was precisely the story of Saint Denis that outraged and tormented Ivan Karamazov, ultimately plunging him into unbelief. Ivan himself was a kind of “philosophical cephalophore,” but, thanks to Dostoevsky’s deft touch, he was unaware of this. The key to any understanding of Christian texts is interpretation. Without it, a document—even a hagiographic one—remains a dead letter. The Church Father Saint Augustine wrote about this magnificently and relentlessly in his treatise “On the Letter and the Spirit.”
So, Herodias took the head of John the Baptist. A parallel narrative began to unfold between the Head and the Body of John the Baptist, one that continued throughout history, at least until that tragic moment when Julian the Apostate (361–363) burned John’s relics in Palestine. The parallel between the Head and the Body found its further paradoxical and prophetic continuation. The Church is the Body of Christ. Christ is the Head of the Church.
Throughout history, it has often been the case that the Church—whether as a community of believers or as the People of God—has visibly or, conversely, invisibly strayed from its Head. Confrontation arose, whether in the form of the Reformation, when human efforts shook the entire Church and its foundations, or Communism, which attempted to reinterpret the mutual coexistence of people in a fraternal foundation and give it an atheistic, God-fighting purpose. Let us recall the philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev (1874–1948), who, in his work of the same name, wrote about the religious roots of Russian communism, or the writer Andrei Platonov (1899–1951), who in his youth proclaimed that Jesus was supposedly actually a Bolshevik, and “we, the Bolsheviks, will not hand Him over to the clergy.” In these and other images, the Body of the Church seems to rise up against the Head of the Church. The images of the Feasts of the Finding of the Head of Saint John offer inspiring examples and remind us of the true significance of this repeated celebration. For the Head of John, in the likeness of the Lord’s Cross, is not merely a relic, but an apocalyptic sign, a prophecy, and a warning to the nations.