end of august the forerunner's glorious decapitation
Based on the Kontakion of the Beheading of the Forerunner, St. John the Baptist (August 29). The Church associates the last days of the liturgical year with a feast not of revelry, as in the last days of the secular year, but of fasting. She presents and re-presents to us the profound paradox that while life in this world leads to death, true life is found in death through Christ. The martyrs are the greatest witnesses of this paradoxical truth, and hence the Church refers to the execution of a martyr as a “crowning,” for every one is a certain victory over death. The Forerunner was in fact the first follower of Christ to be crowned in this way. And he was also the last of the Old Testament prophets, baptizing the very figure whom all those before him spoke of. John's ministry therefore bridges the Old Covenant with the New Covenant, while his beheading bridges the old year with the new year.