Saint John Baptist, Forerunner, as Angel of the Wilderness

Russian wooden icon
Known in Western Christianity as John the Baptist, he is commonly called John the Forerunner (Slavonic Predtecha, Greek Prodromos) in Eastern Orthodoxy. In the New Testament he was the forerunner of Christ’s earthly ministry, and in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus he was also the precursor of Christ’s descent into Hades. Here he is shown as ‘Angel of the Wilderness’