Patriarch Kyril's sermon on the beheading of St. John the Baptist

A sermon by His Holiness Kyrill, Patriarch of Moscow and All the Russia, on the Beheading of the Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John in the Cathedral church of the Savior in the Old Market in Nizhny Novgorod.

Your Eminences, dear Right Reverend hierarchs, fathers, brothers and sisters!

It is a great joy for me to celebrate the Divine liturgy together with my brethren, the bishops who have come from the dioceses of the Volga region, in this magnificent Cathedral of Nizhny Novgorod, to see the local Church united around its bishop, to see young faces, to hear the youth choir, to see many people, who perhaps have only recently entered Church life, but are conscious that they are members of the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Orthodox Church, and to live the Mystery of the Holy Eucharist together with them.

Today we recall a tragic event form the Gospel – the martyr’s end of the Prophet and Forerunner John. This is a day of mourning in the Orthodox Church calendar: we are not supposed to eat any food; bishops and priests wear the vestments which they wear on feast days in Lent. Together with the outward appearance of the clergy and the Gospel and Epistle readings, all this is as it were destined to remind us of the tragedy which took place. The Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John was slain at the suggestion of Herod’s wife who could not forgive the Prophet for his denunciations that she was living illegitimately with her new husband, Herod, because she had previously been his brother’s wife. Of course, the Queen was conscious of her sin. If she had not been conscious of it, she would not have been in such a rage and her rage was such that she was prepared to murder the Prophet, who had enormous authority among the people and with her own husband. She achieved her goal and the prophetic voice of John the Baptist fell silent.

John the Baptist is higher than all those born of women, as the Word of God says of him. This is because he was called to prepare the people to accept the coming of the Savior through repentance. For all sincere repentance presupposes sincere and honest speech. When he who calls to repentance asks unbiased questions he as it were has rights and judgement, he has the right to say what is right and what is wring in human life. And this is what John the Prophet of God did. As the word of God says, John baptised with the Baptism of repentance. He prepared people through repentance so that they would be capable of accepting the word of the Savior, the Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ.

People seldom like to hear the truth about themselves, only in rare cases and only strong people. Most only like to hear good and pleasant things about themselves. And when something good and pleasant has been said, then people presume that the person of whom it has been said, must in return for these good words, which are often false and hypocritical, do something for the person who said them. And a large part of our life is more or less built on the basis of this simple logic of mutual deceit. If you examine your conversations with others, with your colleagues, at table, especially with those in positions of authority, you will immediately detect this false note. This false note shows hypocrisy and lieing and it does not deter cunning. Those who come out with false and lying words are capable of any cunning act, certain that their false words disarm those against whom they have ill-intentioned thoughts.

Lieing has not only entered into our personal relationships with those close to us, it is also present in social relations. And where there is lieing, there can be no repentance, no consciousness of sin, no desire to unburden ourselves of sin, and this means that there is no sincere desire to move towards God. This is why the Forerunner, who denounced people so threateningly, was required. No doubt some of them shrugged their shoulders in bewilderment, others did not care, some probably just cursed the man and walked away. But how many people heard God’s truth in his words and were later helped by this to accept the word of the Savior! This is why he is higher than all the saints – he prepared the earth where the seeds of Christ’s preaching fell.

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