Talk:John the Forerunner

John the Forerunner

Hello, I have a question regarding the St. John the Forerunner page. It says something along the lines of, John the Baptist, also known as John the Forerunner... I was wondering if the two names should be switched, since John the Baptist is a more western term? --Iliada 01:05, March 21, 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with "Western" terminology in itself. In any event, we try to stress the terms most often used by English-speaking Orthodox Christians, no matter their origin.

Doing Google searches on the phrases "John the Baptist" and "John the Forerunner" paired in both cases with "Orthodox" yields hits of 252,000 for the first phrase and only 15,400 for the second. Even a search for "John the Baptist Orthodox Church" 2930 hits versus 494 for "John the Forerunner Orthodox Church." Clearly, English-speaking Orthodox use "John the Baptist" more often.

In fact, given that, the article itself should probably be renamed to "John the Baptist." —Fr. Andrew ^talk contribs (THINK!) 12:27, March 21, 2009 (UTC)