Portal:Saints/Selected article/September 2007

Icon of the Nativity of the Theotokos. Saint Anne is on the left, and Saint Joachim is on the right; in the center, the Theotokos is being bathed by a nursemaid.

The Nativity of the Theotokos, celebrated on September 8, is one of the twelve great feasts of the Eastern Orthodox Liturgical year.

According to the sacred tradition of the Orthodox Church, Mary was born to elderly and previously barren parents by the names of Joachim and Anna (now saints), in answer to their prayers.

Orthodox Christianity does not accept the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, in which it is supposed that Mary was preserved from original sin that befalls all descendants of Adam and Eve, in anticipation of her giving birth to the sinless Christ. The Orthodox believe that Mary, and indeed all mankind, was born only to suffer the consequences of the ancestral sin (being born into a corrupt world surrounded by temptations to sin), the chief of which was the enslavement to Death, and thus she needed salvation from this enslavement, like all mankind. The Catholic Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception also recognizes that Mary was in need of salvation viewing her as prevented from falling into the filth of sin, instead of being pulled up out of it. Orthodox thought varies on whether Mary actually ever sinned, though there is general agreement that she was cleansed from sin at the time of the Annunciation.