Sunday, 11 September 2022, when the Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates the beheading of the Glorious Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist John, His Eminence Vladimir, Metropolitan of Chisinau and all Moldova, officiated the Divine Liturgy in the Nativity of the Lord Cathedral in Chisinau. Numerous church-goers present in the shrine prayed together with the first hierarch of the Moldovan Church and the synaxis of clergymen who assisted the metropolitan at the Liturgy.
The text of the Holy Gospel read out during today’s Liturgy offers us the parable of the workers in the Lord’s Vineyard (Matthew 21: 33-44). The parable shows that God is calling people to his sacred service since the times of the Old Testament, and this call continues in the Christian era. Christ is the master of the vineyard, He is the corner stone and the foundation of His Church. Christ Himself is the Head of the Christian Church and the source of life.
The work in the vineyard is the effort of salvation of the humanity. Some people engage in this work with utmost attention, responsibility, and self-sacrifice, while others, wishing to become masters, turn into unfaithful, disobedient, and unthankful workers.
When the unfaithful ones fail to perform the work they had been called to, God calls others, because His plan of salvation of the humanity cannot be broken. God’s love for His creation is bigger than the wickedness of devils and of some people.
The day of the 11th of September (29 August in the Church Calendar) is the commemoration day of the beheading of the Glorious Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist John. The act of his murder by beheading is described in the Gospel (Mark 6: 14-30) as a confirmation of the Lord’s Parable of unfaithful workers of His vineyard.
With the blessing of Metropolitan Vladimir, archpriest Vadim Cheibas, the Dean of the Cathedral, delivered a message of pastoral guidance, explaining the significance of today’s Gospel readings. Fr. Vadim underlined that the commemoration of the beheading of St. John the Forerunner is always marked with fast in the memory of the saint’s pure and ascetic life.
Synodal Sector of Institutional Communication and Mass-Media Relations,