Where is St John the Baptist’s head?

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On Monday we remember the passion and death of St John the Baptist. He was said to have been buried at the Palestinian village of Sebastia, near modern-day Nablus in the West Bank.

Relics were being honored there in the fourth century and the tomb continued to be visited by pilgrims, and St Jerome bears witness to miracles being worked there. Today, the tomb is said by some to be housed there in the Nabi Yahya Mosque (“John the Baptist Mosque”).

Relics of the saints have always had a fascination for many as centres of devotion. What became of the Head of John the Baptist is particularly hard to determine, and the centre of curious rivalries. Some ancient authorities say that Herodias had it buried in Jerusalem possibly in Herod’s palace, where it was found during the reign of Constantine and secretly taken to Phoenicia. There it was hidden for years, until it was manifested by a revelation in 453. In any case, over the centuries several different locations claim to possess the relic. Among the various claimants are:

  • in France, Amiens Cathedral contains what it claims to be the head of John the Baptist, brought as a relic from Constantinople by the French leaders of the Fourth Crusade
  • Islamic tradition maintains that the head of Saint John the Baptist was interred in what was previously the Basilica of Saint John the Baptist in Damascus, now the Umayyad Mosque
  • the Eastern Orthodox Church of St John the Baptist in Jerusalem displays a purported fragment of the skull of St John the Baptist
  • a reliquary at the Residenz in Munich, Germany, is labelled as containing what previous Bavarian rulers thought was the skull of John the Baptist
  • it is also believed by some that a piece of the skull is held at one of the monasteries on Mount Athos, in Greece
  • lastly, a strong tradition holds that the head on display at the church of San Silvestro in Capite in Rome is that of John the Baptist

The jokey priest there when I was in seminary in Rome in the 70s used to joke that their head was when John the Baptist was a younger man!

Fr Matthew

Not one hair’s breadth – St David Lewis

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St David Lewis was born at Abergavenny in 1616, the youngest of nine children of an Anglican headmaster father and Catholic mother. At 16 years of age, while visiting Paris, he converted to Catholicism. He was ordained priest in 1642 and three years later, he joined the Jesuits. He came back to Wales for a year, but was appointed Spiritual Director at the English College Seminary in Rome, where he himself had studied. Finally he returned once more to Monmouthshire where he was to minister for 30 years. He paid particular attention to the poor and needy, gaining the nickname Tad y Tlodion (“Father of the Poor”).

He was arrested on 17 November 1678 at St Michael’s Church, Llantarnam, and condemned at Monmouth in March 1679 as a Catholic priest and for saying Catholic Masses. Betrayed by an apostate couple, he was accused of attempting to kill Charles II and trying to restore the Catholic faith in Wales. He pled not guilty to the charge of being an accessory to the so-called Popish Plot. He was found guilty, sentenced to death and taken to Newgate Prison in London with St John Kemble of Herefordshire and questioned about the “plot”. So-called witnesses were unable to prove anything against him. He was brought back to Usk where he was hanged and disemboweled on 27 August 1679. It was a tribute to the esteem in which he was held that the crowd, mainly Protestants, insisted that he receive a proper burial. The Sheriff, who knew and liked Lewis, refused to attend the execution, which he had postponed for as long as he could.

As one of the 40 Martyrs David Lewis was canonized in 1970. A plaque marks the spot where Lewis was arrested near Llantarnam Abbey, and his grave can be visited in the (Anglican) churchyard in Usk.
The Catholic church there is dedicated to him and St Francis Xavier. In his last words he said:

“My religion is Roman Catholic; in it I have loved above these forty years; in it now I die, and so fixedly die, that if all the good things in the world were offered to me to renounce it, all should not remove me one hair’s breadth from the Roman Catholic faith. A Roman Catholic I am; a Roman Catholic priest I am; a Roman Catholic priest of that order known as the Society of Jesus, I am.”

See details in our newsletter for Annual Pilgrimage in honour of Saint David Lewis S.J, next Sunday 28 August.

The Assumption, Warwick Street

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On this Feast of the Assumption we learn about one of the oldest Catholic churches in London, hidden behind Regent Street, from their website warwickstreet.org.uk.

“The church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory is located on Warwick Street in Soho. At a time in England when Catholic churches and chapels were not permitted, foreign embassies had the right to have their own chapels, and the Portuguese Ambassador had a chapel constructed at the back of his house. When the Portuguese moved out, the lease was taken over by the ambassador of the Bavarian sovereign. The embassy was occupied in Golden Square until 1788, so it was the Bavarian ambassador’s chapel that was destroyed during the Gordon Riots in 1780.

The current church was built in 1789 – 90 on the site of the Bavarian chapel. With the patronage of the Elector of Bavaria, the bishop appealed for funds for the erection of a new church. Building began in the spring of 1789 to a design by architect Joseph Bonomi, and the new church was opened the next year.

Catholic life in England developed steadily during the first half of the nineteenth century. Mrs Fitzherbert, morganatic wife of the Prince of Wales (later George IV), worshipped regularly at the church. Saint John Henry Newman, when a boy, was taken to the church by his father. He later wrote: “All that I bore away from it was the recollection of a pulpit and a preacher and a boy swinging a censer”. The church developed a strong musical tradition early on and became well-known for its musical excellence. In 1875, the sanctuary was remodelled according to a design by John Francis Bentley – later the architect of Westminster Cathedral. An apse was constructed and decorated with marble and mosaics.

Warwick Street’s location in the heart of London’s West End between Piccadilly Circus and Soho imparts a special character. Surrounded by both great wealth and extreme poverty, it is a destination for pleasure-seekers and revellers as well as an assembly place of the lonely, the addicted, and street-sleepers. The church remains open throughout the day and offers welcome and consolation to all.”