There are a few important feast days, although not considered on par as the twelve principal feast days of the Church, nevertheless are held in high regard as major feast days.  Such are two feast days related to the Honorable, Glorious Prophet and Forerunner and Baptist John, His Nativity and His Beheading

On the Church calendar, the commemoration of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, is held on August 29.  This is a day of strict fasting, in remembrance of the horrible execution of a man, who as the Lord Himself stated no one greater ever was created.

His Grace, Bishop Luke, presided at the Polyleos during the All-Night Vigil and the Divine Liturgy on the day itself.  On this day, in the Russian Church, all those warriors who lay down their lives for the Tsar and the Fatherland are commemorated at the Great Entrance. 

Through the intercessions of the Forerunner, may we never fall into the sin of giving in to our passions, which provoked King Herod Antipas to put to death the greatest of anyone born to a woman.