On the Feast of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist on Wednesday, August 29, 2018, His Grace Bishop Macarie Drăgoi of the Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Northern Europe served the Divine Liturgy in the Chapel of the Isenvad Ikast Monastery in Denmark. On the eve, in the parish church in Herning Ikast, the hierarch, together with a gathering of priests, served the Mystery of the Holy Unction and consecrated the great icon of the Mother of God, the Increase of the Mind, in the Romanian church.

In the word of the ministry, the His Grace Macarie affirmed that St. John the Baptist is our example through attitude, not just through his exhortations to repentance: “Before the elites of his time, religious and political, he testified firmly. He did not let himself be intimidated, nor did he seek to please the Pharisees or the King, but rather he criticized them vehemently. He told King Herod that he was not allowed to live with Herodias, his brother’s wife and rebuked him because he was defying Jewish morality. When we are in the face of abuses and exploitations, when the most elementary rules of morality are violated, when injustice and deeds of shame are committed, then we should not let ourselves be intimidated, nor seek to please men or look to the people’s social status, but to show dignity, following St. John the Baptist and testifying for the truth of things.”

Speaking of hatred and injustice towards the fellow man, His Grace Macarie also uttered a word of St. Tikhon from Zadonsk: “It is said that the bee, when it pinches someone with the needle, dies itself. The same is true for the Christian when he is injustice and afflicting him in some way with his neighbor. He can not unjust his neighbor without injuring himself. The more he brings injustice to his neighbor, the more he fails himself; the more he hurts his neighbor, the more he hurts himself.”