Zechariah
[1st century BC]
Zechariah is famous for being the elderly father of John the Baptist, whose birth was foretold by a visit from an angel. Lesser known is that he had his throat cut open in a temple for refusing to tell Roman soldiers his young son’s whereabouts, when they were massacring babies they thought might’ve been Jesus. In the Infancy Gospel of James, an apocryphal text from the 2nd century, it’s said that Zechariah’s spilled blood turned to stone. Since then, his name has been invoked as a charm to stop bleeding.
So next time you have a nosebleed or other fleshwound, try reciting this Serbian prayer: “Holy Zechariah is lying between church and altar, and as with the holy man the blood in the veins of hand, foot, and heel has dried up and turned into stone, and as the pain, cramps, and all kinds of inflicted and fresh wounds have passed, so with me also the inflicted old or fresh wounds may dry up and pass, now and forever. Amen.”