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Conception of the Most Holy Theotokos by Righteous Anna
On this day the Orthodox Church celebrates one of the great feasts of the Mother of God, the conception by Saint Anna of the Most Holy Theotokos. Saints Joachim and Anna, the parents of the Virgin Mary, lived in Nazareth of Galilee. Joachim was descended from the tribe of Judah and the royal house of David; Anna was the youngest daughter of the priest Matthan from the tribe of Levi and the family of Aaron. Each year they devoted two thirds of their substance to the Temple in Jerusalem and to the poor. Throughout long years of marriage they remained childless, and their barrenness was reproached as a sign of God's displeasure. After much prayer and fasting, when Joachim had withdrawn to the mountain and Anna sat lamenting in her garden, the Archangel Gabriel appeared to each separately, announcing that Anna would conceive and bear a daughter who would be blessed above all women. They met joyfully at the Golden Gate of Jerusalem, and in due time Anna conceived. Her child was the All-Holy Virgin who would become the Mother of God. The feast falls nine months and a day before the Nativity of the Theotokos on 8 September. The Orthodox Church does not teach the Roman doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, but holds that the conception was natural, while confessing that from her conception Mary was set apart and filled with grace by the providence of God.
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Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos "Of the Unexpected Joy"
The icon of the Mother of God known as "Of the Unexpected Joy" is commemorated on this day in connection with an account preserved by Saint Demetrius of Rostov in his Bedewed Fleece. A certain man, lawless in his life yet retaining a particular reverence for the Mother of God, was accustomed to greet her image each day with the angelic salutation. One day, as he prepared to go out and commit a sin, he stopped before the icon and was suddenly seized with trembling. He saw blood flowing from the wounds on the hands, feet and side of the Christ Child held by His Mother. Falling down in horror he cried, "O Lady, who has done this?" The Theotokos answered that he and other sinners crucify her Son anew by their sins. Pierced to the heart, the man wept bitterly and entreated her intercession. After three petitions she obtained pardon for him from her Son, who at first refused, and the man, hearing himself absolved, departed in unexpected joy and amended his life. From this account the icon takes its name and has been venerated throughout Russia as a refuge for sinners seeking repentance, with copies famed for miraculous answers to prayer.
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The Conception of the Most Holy Mother of God
“In accordance with the eternal purpose of God, who willed to prepare a most pure habitation for Himself in order to take flesh and dwell among men, Joachim and Anna were prevented from having children for many years. Their barren old age was symbolic of human nature itself, bowed down and dried up under the weight of sin and death, yet they never ceased begging God to take away their reproach. Now when the time of preparation determined by the Lord had been fulfilled, God sent an Angel to Joachim in solitude on a mountain, and to Anna in her affliction weeping in her garden, to tell them that the ancient prophecies were soon to be fulfilled in them: a child would be born to them, who was destined to become the veritable Ark of the new Covenant, the divine Ladder, the unburnt Bush, the living Temple where the Word of God would take up his abode. Through the conception of Saint Anna, the barrenness of human nature itself, separated from God by death, has on this day been brought to an end; and by the wondrous birth-giving of her who had remained childless until the age when women can no longer bear fruit, God announced and testified to the more astonishing miracle of the Conception without seed, and of the immaculate coming to birth of Christ within the heart and the womb of the Most Holy Virgin and Mother of God.
“Even though the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary took place through a miraculous action of God, she was conceived by the union of man and woman in accordance with the laws of our human nature, which has fallen through Adam’s transgression and become subject to sin and corruption (cf. Gen. 3:16). As the chosen Vessel and precious Shrine prepared by God since the beginning of time, she is indeed the most pure and the most perfect of mankind, but even so, she has not been set apart from our common inheritance nor from the consequences of the sin of our first parents. Just as it was fitting that Christ, in order to deliver us from death by his own voluntary death (Heb. 2:14), should by His Incarnation be made like to men in all things except sin; so it was meet that His Mother, in whose womb the Word of God would unite with human nature, should be subject to death and corruption like every child of Adam, lest we not be fully included in Salvation and Redemption. The Mother of God has been chosen and preferred among all women, not arbitrarily, but because God foresaw that she would preserve her purity and keep it perfect: conceived and born like all of us, she has been worthy to become the Mother of the Son of God and the mother of us all. So, in her tenderness and compassion, she is able to intercede for us with her Son, that He may have mercy upon us.
“Just as the Lord Jesus Christ was the fruit of the virginity of the holy Mother of God, so she herself was the fruit of the chastity of Joachim and Anna. And by following the same path of chastity we too, monks and Christian married people, can bring Christ to be born and grow in us.” (Synaxarion)
In the Latin church, this day is called the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, reflecting the erroneous Latin view of the conception of the Holy Theotokos.
“The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception proclaimed by the Roman Catholics in 1858 is rejected by the Orthodox Church, but without in any way detracting from the dignity of the Mother of God. In fact, according to the Fathers, the inheritance from Adam consists not in a personal responsibility of all men for original sin, but simply in the inheritance of the consequences of sin: death, corruption and the passions (including procreation and fleshly union). Hence the Orthodox have no difficulty in recognizing that the Mother of God was heir, like us, of all the consequences of Adam’s sin — Christ alone was exempt — but at the same time pure and without personal sin, for she freely kept herself from all attraction for the world and for the passions, and she voluntarily co-operated in God’s purpose by obeying His will with docility: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word, she replied to the Angel Gabriel (Luke 1:38)” (Synaxarion)
Holy Prophetess Anna, mother of the Prophet Samuel
The Holy Prophetess Anna, known in Hebrew as Hannah, lived around 1100 BC and was the wife of Elkanah of the tribe of Levi. Anna was childless for many years, while Elkanah's other wife Phennena bore him children and reproached her bitterly. Each year the family went up to the tabernacle at Shiloh, and there Anna prayed in deep affliction of soul, vowing that if the Lord granted her a son she would dedicate him to His service. The high priest Eli at first thought her drunk, since she prayed silently with only her lips moving, but when she explained her sorrow he blessed her and prayed that her petition be granted. The Lord heard her, and she conceived and bore a son whom she named Samuel, meaning "heard of God." When the child was weaned she brought him to the tabernacle and gave him over to Eli to be raised in the service of the Lord, and she sang a prophetic hymn of thanksgiving (1 Samuel 2:1-10) which became a model for the canticles of the Church and the Magnificat of the Theotokos. Samuel grew up to be the last of the judges of Israel and the prophet who anointed Saul and David as kings. The Church honours Anna as a type of patient prayer and faithful surrender to the will of God.