Day of the Holy Innocent Babies of Bethlehem (28/12)

On December 28, the Roman Catholic Church celebrates the Day of the Holy Innocent Babies of Bethlehem.

Christians revere holy babies as martyrs, believing that anyone who was killed out of hatred of Christ should be considered a martyr, even if he was unaware of the meaning of what was happening.

According to the Gospel of Matthew (2:16), King Herod ordered the killing of all innocent babies after learning from the Magi about the birth of Christ (Messiah).

«Then Herod, seeing himself ridiculed by the wise men, became very angry and sent to beat all the babies in Bethlehem and within all its borders, from two years old and below, according to the time that he learned from the wise men».

Herod wanted to eliminate Jesus as a potential contender for his throne, however, the baby Jesus managed to avoid death, since Saint Joseph went with his family to Egypt.

The Synoptic Gospels explain the execution of Jesus by saying that the role of Jesus as Christ (Messiah) also implied political claims to the kingdom. The account of the beating of innocent babies places the origin of this erroneous opinion at the time of the Nativity of Jesus Christ.

The Day of Remembrance of Holy Innocently Murdered Infants, starting from the 5th century, began to be celebrated by the Church of Constantinople, and then by the rest of the Christian Churches. The relics of holy innocently murdered babies were worshiped in the three main centers of Eastern Christianity – Constantinople, Antioch and Alexandria. The incorruptible remains of one of the babies were donated to the Roman bishops, and later Pope Stephen II gave them to the French king Pepin the Short. In 770, Charlemagne placed them in a monastery in Brantome (France), and since then mass pilgrimages of believers have been made here, especially before this holiday.

The Russian Orthodox Church honors the memory of the Martyrs of 14,000 babies beaten by Herod in Bethlehem on January 11 (new style).

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