Holy Prophet Jonah

The Holy Prophet Jonah lived in the 8th century before Christ and was a successor to the Prophet Elisha. His book, included in Holy Scripture, contains prophecies concerning Israel, the sufferings of the Savior, the fall of Jerusalem, and the end of the world. It recounts Jonah’s mission to Nineveh, where he preached repentance and the people repented. Christ clearly revealed Jonah’s story when the scribes and Pharisees demanded a sign. He gave them the sign of Jonah: as Jonah remained three days and three nights in the great fish, so the Son of Man would be three days in the heart of the earth. Thus Jonah’s experience prefigures Christ’s death, descent into Hades, and Resurrection. The Lord declared that the repentant Ninevites would rise in judgment against the unrepentant generation, for they believed Jonah’s preaching, while one greater than Jonah was present among them at that time.