Inscription in Church Slavonic: Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. (John 1:29)

Feast Day(s): 24th June (Nativity); 29th August (Beheading), 7th January (Synaxis)

St John is shown half-length wearing a brown hair shirt, traditional for desert ascetics, and over which he wears a blue himation with gold reflexes there is also a kovcheg or raised border. He holds a chalice-shaped discos, or paten, in his left hand while his right-hand points to what it contains: the miniature figure of Christ as the Eucharistic symbol of the Lamb of God. John is turned to his right reverently gazing towards what would have been an icon of the Saviour, present whereabouts unknown. An icon of the Mother of God, also facing inwards, would have completed the group constituting a Deesis[1] 

[1] The Greek word ‘Deesis’ means prayer or ‘entreaty’ and is usually rendered today as Intercession. That is the meaning of the image of Christ the Saviour attended by The Virgin and John the Baptist interceding on behalf of humanity at the Throne of Judgment.