HOLY PROPHET ZACHARIAS, FATHER OF THE FORERUNNER
Arrayed in priestly vestments, thou didst offer sacrifice according to God's law./ Thou wast a light and a seer of mysteries bearing the signs of grace within thee./ Thou wast slain in the temple of God,/ O Zacharias, Prophet of Christ./ Together with the Forerunner pray that our souls may be saved.
Kontakion of St Zacharias Tone 3
Zacharias, Prophet and Priest and father of the Forerunner,/ is preparing a feast for the faithful/ and is mixing a draught of righteousness./ Let us praise him,/ as a holy seer of the grace of God.
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Saint Zacharias
Too few Christians are aware of the sainthood of Zacharias. Fewer still know that God chose Zacharias to be the father of St. John the Baptizer, the Forerunner of the Savior. In this way, Zacharias was an instrument of God's divine plan for the salvation of man through Jesus Christ. He prepared the way for his son John, who in turn prepared the way of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Thus, the appearance of John, like that of Christ, was no accident of birth, and Zacharias was an instrument of God for this most solemn purpose.
Zacharias served God in the Temple in Jerusalem. Together with his wife Elizabeth he led a life of piety. They had no children and accepted their childlessness as God's will. Their situation changed, however, when God sent the Archangel Gabriel to Zacharias to tell him that his wife Elizabeth would bear him a son whom he should call John. Because his wife had exceeded the age of childbearing, Zacharias asked that a sign be given. Although Gabriel assured Zacharias that he would indeed become a father, Zacharias still did not believe. Consequently, he was rendered mute as a sign. His speech would not be restored until the Lord so deemed. At the exact moment of the birth of his son John, when Zacharias was enabled to speak, he could but week for joy.
John was born a few month before Jesus and was similarly an intended victim of King Herod's decree that all children under the age of two should be put to death. By this abominable decree Herod hoped to assure the death of the newborn Savior among the slain infants. When the Holy Family fled to Egypt, Elizabeth took her precious baby to the hills outside of Jerusalem. Zacharias remained behind to face the wrath of Herod who had been told that this most holy man was the father of a son who had been spirited out of Jerusalem. He tried to appease Herod's wrath to no avail, however, and was told that if he revealed the whereabouts of his offspring he would not be punished. This ludicrous proposition was scornfully spurned, and in due course the harsh justice was meted out and the kindly Zacharias was put to death.
With no next of kin to claim the martyred father, the record of his internment was lost. For centuries he lay in obscurity in an unmarked grave. However, in A.D. 409, during the reign of Emperor Theodosios, Kalimenos, a man about whom nothing is known except for his name, fortuitously discovered the burial site of St. John's father.
The remains of Zacharias, clad with white vestments with a gold mitre on his head and on his feet the golden sandals he had worn in the Temple, were uncovered on 11 February 409. Each year on this day the Church observes the feast day of Zacharias.
However, being the father of St. John the Baptizer is not sufficient in itself to qualify a man for sainthood, but in the case of Zacharias there are too many other considerations to be made that indicate otherwise. In the first place, although details of his early life remain obscured, Zacharias, a deeply religious as well as courageous man, must have spoken to him through the Archangel Gabriel. Even scientists have been heard to say that God leaves nothing to chance. His voicelessness added to his moral strength through God when his son John was born. With his voice regained, he could have spoken up when summoned before Herod but he may well just have been voiceless again,. God had restored his voice, but he refused to use it. In choosing to remain silent as to his son's whereabouts, he close to give his own life so that John might live and become the prefiguration of Jesus Christ. Because he had the power of God within him to sustain him through his ordeal with Herod, whose name lives in infamy. Zacharias must have shown a composure and serenity that just had to confound those who would destroy him. Herod was in a state of bewilderment as well as anger. God knew what he was doing when he chose Zacharias and we revere his choice as a saint.
(http://www.resurrectionmission.org/mainpage.htm)
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