Ss. Joachim and Anna, the Ancestors of God

The parents of the Theotokos, remembered at the end of every service, where the priest names the holy and righteous ancestors of God. Scripture does not name them. The tradition the Church sings, from the ancient book called the Protevangelium of James, tells of a couple shamed for their childlessness, of Joachim’s offering refused at the Temple, of Anna praying in her garden beside a nest of sparrows, and of an angel sent to both. The Church keeps the conception of their daughter on 9 December, her birth on 8 September and them on the day after. She was conceived as every child is, in the Orthodox teaching: the Latin dogma that she was preserved from the inheritance of Adam is not received. Feast: September 9.