Annunciation

Life

When the Most Holy Virgin had completed eleven years of dwelling and service at the Temple of Jerusalem, and fourteen years from her birth — that is, when she entered her fifteenth year of life — the priests informed her that by law she could no longer remain at the Temple, but must be betrothed and enter into marriage. But what a great surprise for all the priests was the reply of the Most Holy Virgin, that she had dedicated herself to God and wished to remain a virgin until death, entering into marriage with no one! Then by the providence and inspiration of God, the high priest Zacharias — father of the Forerunner — in agreement with the other priests, gathered twelve unmarried men from the tribe of David, that the Virgin Mary might be entrusted to one of them for the safekeeping of her virginity and her care. And she was entrusted to the elderly Joseph of Nazareth, who was also her kinsman. In the house of Joseph, the Most Holy Virgin continued to live just as in the Temple of Solomon — spending her time in reading Holy Scripture, in prayers, in meditation on God, in fasting, and in handiwork. She almost never went out of the house, nor did she concern herself with worldly matters and events. She spoke with very few people at all, and never without special need. Most often in the house she communicated with Joseph's two daughters. But when the time prophesied by the prophet Daniel was fulfilled, and when God was pleased to fulfill His promise to the exiled Adam and to the prophets, the great Archangel Gabriel appeared in the chamber of the Most Holy Virgin — at the moment, as certain sacred writers record, when she was holding the opened prophet Isaiah and meditating on his great prophecy: Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son! (Isa. 7:14). Gabriel appeared to her in archangelic light and said to her: Rejoice, thou who art full of grace! The Lord is with thee! — and all the rest in order as it is written in the Gospel of the divine Luke (Luke 1:26-38). With this archangelic annunciation, and with the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Most Pure Virgin, the salvation of men and the renewal of creation began. The history of the New Testament was opened by the Archangel Gabriel with the word: Rejoice! — to signify thereby that the New Testament was to mean joy for men and for all created nature. Hence the Annunciation is regarded as a feast both great and joyful.

From the Hymn of Praise

### THE MOST HOLY THEOTOKOS