Zacharias and Elisabeth

Zacharias was a priest of the division of Abijah, and his wife Elisabeth was of the daughters of Aaron and a kinswoman of the Virgin Mary. The Gospel of Luke calls them both 'righteous before God, walking in all the commandments of the Lord blameless,' yet childless in their old age. While Zacharias served in the Temple, the Archangel Gabriel appeared at the altar of incense and announced that Elisabeth would bear a son, John, the Forerunner of the Lord; doubting, Zacharias was struck mute until the child's naming, when his tongue was loosed and he uttered the prophetic hymn, the Benedictus. Elisabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, greeted the Mother of God as 'the mother of my Lord.' Tradition holds that Zacharias was slain in the Temple during Herod's massacre, while Elisabeth hid the infant John in the wilderness.