The Holy Prophet Zacharias, Father of the Venerable Forerunner.
According to the opinion of many Fathers of the Church, based on an ancient tradition, this is the Zacharias whom, as our Lord said, the Jews slew between the temple and the altar (Matt. 23:35), first, because even after the Virgin Mary gave birth, he continued to refer to her as virgin and numbered her among the virgins (see Saint Basil’s Homily on the Birth of Christ, PG 31:1468–9); second, because Zacharias’ son John was not found during the slaughter of the Innocents (Dec. 29), since the elderly Elizabeth had taken him and carefully hid him while he was yet an infant, in an unnamed place somewhere in the desert, where, according to the Evangelist, “the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel” (Luke 1:80). When the child was not found, his father was slain by Herod’s command (see Saint Peter of Alexandria, Canon 13, in The Rudder).
The above account is taken from the Great Horologion,
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