The Entrance of the Theotokos and the Impossibility of the "Ordination-Priesthood of Women"

By Protopresbyter Angelos Angelakopoulos, 
Rector of the Church of Panagia Myrtidiotissa, Piraeus

November 2012

The Entrance of the Lady Theotokos into the Temple of the Law causes a wondrous and universal celebration for Orthodox Christians, because it happened in a strange way and is a prelude to the greatest and most awesome mystery of the incarnation of God the Word, which was to happen in the world through the Theotokos. The occasion for the feast of the Entrance was the following incident. The most-illustrious Saint Anna, because she spent almost her entire life barren, without giving birth to a child, begged the Lord of nature together with her husband, Saint Joachim, to grant them a child and, if they succeeded in their desire, they would immediately dedicate to God the child they would give birth to. And so, Saint Anna gave birth, paradoxically, by promise and with the seed of a man, to her who became the bringer of the salvation of the human race, the reconciliation and harmony of God with mankind, the cause of restoration, resurrection, and the divinization of the fallen Adam, that is, the Most Holy and Lady Theotokos Mary. Therefore, when she was three years old, her parents took her and, after gathering the virgins of the neighborhood, who accompanied the Panagia with torches, offered her on this day in the Temple. And, fulfilling their promises, they dedicated their daughter to God, who gave her to them. That is why they handed her over to the priests and even to the then high priest, the prophet Zechariah, the father of Saint John the Baptist, who began to praise both the Virgin and her parents, Joachim and Anna, who, addressing the prophet Zechariah, said to him: “Receive, High Priest, my daughter, rather the daughter of God. Receive her pure and undefiled and higher than heaven. Put her in the Temple, because that is where she should reside. She is the Temple of God, in a Temple it is fitting for her to reside. She is holy, put her in a clean place. Deliver her into the hands of God. Add her to a holy place, so that she may be sanctified. Take, Zechariah, my daughter and dedicate her to the Temple, for so we have ordered.” When Zechariah heard that she had been offered to God, he took her to the Altar. There were the jar of Moses, which once held the manna, Aaron's rod, the golden censer, and the tablets on which the law was written. As soon as the Panagia entered, they all fell down and venerated her. So when Zechariah received her, he placed her in the innermost part of the Temple, where the high priest entered alone once a year. And he did this according to the will of God, who was soon to be born of her, for the correction and salvation of the world.

The Entrance of the Most Holy Theotokos Into the Temple in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

 

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

There are many hymnographers of this feast of the Mother of God, the event of which is not recorded at all in the New Testament. The incident of her entrance into the Temple is found in the so-called Apocryphal Gospels, as is the case with other feasts of the Panagia, in texts that our Church did not consider valid, due to the heresies or even fabrications inherent in them. However, within these there are also true events, which our Church does not hesitate to retrieve and celebrate, seeing not only their truth, but also their usefulness. And this is an element that reveals the absolute self-awareness of the Church, as the “pillar and bulwark of truth,” a self-awareness such as gives it the right and the comfort to choose what it considers true and good, even if this comes from texts that are not considered canonical.

Homily for the Entrance of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple (Fr. Daniel Sysoev)

Homily for the Entrance of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple 

By Fr. Daniel Sysoev

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!

I congratulate you all on the feast of the Entrance of the Most Holy Mother of God, the Ever-Virgin Mary, into the Temple! Throughout all time, our all-merciful and omnipotent Lord has been surrounded by the inconceivable glory of His Divine Face, surrounded by an inconceivable radiance that pours forth from His luminous essence beyond all time. This radiance is also called the glory and power of God, uncreated grace. This Divine glory originally entered the world created by God; it clothed the first man, Adam, who was created in paradise, but it departed from the first man after he rebelled against the Creator. But the Lord, desiring to return man to Himself, did not leave him completely bereft of Divine grace. The Lord led the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt and revealed His glory in the form of a pillar of fire and cloud, through which God Himself led His people into the desert. The Lord Himself sought a place to rest, parted the waters of the Red Sea, and led the Jews through it.

Homily Three for the Entrance of the Theotokos (St. John of Kronstadt)

Homily Three for the Entrance of the Theotokos 

By St. John of Kronstadt

"Long ago the prophetic order was foretold… 
Let us faithfully praise Mary, the God-bearer in her infancy; 
for today she is brought into the Holy of Holies 
to be dedicated to the Lord" (Oikos at Matins)

We celebrate today, brethren, the solemn commemoration of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple. What does this entry mean, why was it performed, and by whom? The holy and righteous Ancestors of God, Joachim and Anna, the parents of the Most Holy Virgin, having been childless for a long time, prayed to God to grant them a child, and if God granted, they promised to dedicate the child to God for life and service in the Temple. God heeded their prayer and granted them a daughter, Mary. Until the age of three, the infant lived in her parents' home, and at the age of four, they brought her from the city of Nazareth to the city of Jerusalem, to Solomon's Temple. Here, the High Priest Zechariah received her, leading her into the Holy of Holies of the Temple, where only the High Priest could enter once a year. From that time on, the Most Holy Virgin, until her coming of age, lived at the Temple along with other virgins dedicated to the service of God, learning to read the Holy Scriptures, writing and needlework, and having free access to the Holy of Holies for prayer, to which she devoted most of her time, and here she often received food from the Archangel Gabriel. Thus, the Most Holy Virgin Mary was brought into the Temple to be nurtured by the Lord.

Prologue in Sermons: November 21

 

The Ways of God's Providence Are Inscrutable

November 21

(A Sermon on the Incomprehensible Judgments of God, Prayed About by a Certain Monk, So That He Might Understand the Ways of God's Providence)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

Instead of bowing before God, who works inscrutable ways, and humbly observing all His actions, we, on the contrary, often judge the Lord's decrees with arrogance, sometimes complaining about them. But this should not be. The ways of God's Providence, though inscrutable, are always beneficial to us and always lead to good consequences.