“Today the universe celebrates the Conception of Anna, which is brought about by God.”
(The Kontakion of the Feast)
The very ancient and profound cult of the Most Holy Mother of God, a characteristic mark of the Eastern Church, is especially manifested in the great wealth of Marian feasts in the Liturgical Year. These feasts present to us the more important moments in the life of the Mother of God, from the moment of her immaculate Conception to the moment of her glorious Dormition (Assumption into Heaven).
The Holy Gospel does not give much information about the life of the Most Pure Virgin Mary, hence, it is not strange that the feasts of our Blessed Mother in general do not have their basis in the events of the Gospels, but rather in Christian tradition and in the narratives (accounts) given in the Apocryphal books of the first centuries. One such feast is that of the Conception of St. Ann, which our Church celebrates on the 9th of December. Let us consider the history of this feast as it developed both in the East and in the West and in our Church.
The Feast of the Conception of St. Ann in the East
First mention of this feast was made in the Typicon of St. Sabbas of the fifth century, but it did not begin to develop and spread until the eighth century. During this time, St. Andrew of Crete composed a liturgy for this feast; George of Nicomedia and John of Eubeia extol it in their sermons. By the ninth century this feast had spread throughout the entire Byzantine empire; now it is celebrated in all the Eastern Churches.
The feast of the Conception of St. Ann in ancient times was known by several different names. One of the oldest is “The Annunciation of the Conception of the Holy Mother of God”. In the constitution on feasts, Emperor Manuel Comnen (1143-1181) calls this feast the “Conception of our Most Holy Mother of God”. The Slavonic Typicons generally refer to it as the “Conception of Blessed Ann” or “The Conception of Holy Ann, when she conceived the Most Holy Mother of God”. In our Ukrainian Catholic Church the Synod of Lviv gave this feast the official title “The Immaculate Conception of the Most Pure Virgin Mary”. However, the Roman revision of our liturgical books restored the pristine title of the feast “The Conception of Holy Anna, when She conceived the Most Holy Mother of God”.
The main theme of the liturgy of this feast, according to the Apocrypha, was the miraculous event when Anna conceived the Most Holy Mother of God. This liturgy describes the grief and distress Joachim and Anna experienced because of their childlessness, and presents the fervent prayer of Anna:
“O Lord God of the heavenly Powers,” prays St. Ann, “You know the shame of childlessness, therefore, heal the pain of my heart and make this barren one fruitful…”
(Stichera of the Vespers service of the Feast).
In response to her fervent supplication, an angel appears and announces the conception of the Most Pure Virgin Mary. “Your supplication,” says the angel, “has reached the Lord. Do not be sad, and cease weeping, for you shall become a fruitful olive tree, bringing forth a young shoot a wonderful maiden, who will bring forth a flower – the Christ in the flesh, who will grant great mercy to the world.” (Ibidem) At the moment of her conception, the womb of St. Ann becomes like a heaven…”A new heaven is being formed in the womb of Anna,” says the Sessional Hymn in Matins, “at the command of the Almighty God; from it shines forth the never-setting Sun, illumining the whole universe with the rays of the Divinity, with the great riches of goodness, the one and only Lover of Mankind.”
Her parents rejoice over the wonderful conception of the Most Holy Mother of God; the prophets rejoice; heaven and earth rejoice. The Church calls upon the Old and New Testaments to join in the rejoicing:
“Come, people of all classes and ages,” we sing in the sticheras of the Praises in Matins, “let us celebrate with the Angels the all-glorious conception of the Mother of God; patriarchs sing praises to the Mother of the King of all; you, prophets, praise her whom you preached; you, forefathers, praise your descendant the Mother of God; you aged, praise the ancestor of God; you, faithful, praise the root of your faith; you, priests, praise the all-holy temple of God; you, choirs of saints, praise the cause of your assembly; you, armies of angels, praise the Mother of the Lord of all creation, and Saviour of our souls.”
In the service of the Conception of St. Ann the holiness and purity of the Most Holy Virgin Mary is praised:
“Choirs of prophets,” says the Sessional Hymn of Matins, “in times past preached the immaculate, pure, and divine maiden and Virgin, whom Ann conceived, who until then had been barren and childless. We, who have been saved because of her, let us extol her today with hearts filled with joy as the one and only Immaculate One.”
The canon of Matins which was composed by St. Andrew of Crete is a most beautiful hymn in honor of the Conception of the Mother of God. She is the “Undefiled Ark”, the “pure dove”, “the star of divine grace”, “divine temple of the Master”, “royal porphyry”, “fragrant myrrh”, “burning bush”, “immaculate dove”, “holy sceptre, the New Testament and urn containing the manna”, “unconsumed bush”, “golden candlestick”, “living chamber of the Lord God”, “living fountain”, “holy temple”.
Today we celebrate her immaculate conception whereas nine months later on the 8th of September she appears among us in her glorious Nativity.
The Feast of the Conception of Holy Ann in the West
Somewhere around the tenth century this feast spread from the East to England. During the reform of the Anglo-Saxon Church under William the Conqueror (1066-1087) it was abolished, and then restored again in 1125.
In the West, the feast of the Conception of St. Ann underwent a great evolution. The East directed its attention mainly to the miraculous fact of the conception by old and barren parents, while the West in this feast stressed, not so much the fact as the manner of this conception. Thus there slowly emerged the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God, which teaches that the Most Pure Virgin Mary was free from original sin from the very first moment of her conception. The theologians of the thirteenth century argued heatedly about this teaching; some, under the leadership of John Duns Scotus (+1308), defended this doctrine, while others under the leadership of St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) disputed it. In later times, most theologians in the West defended the Immaculate Conception. Pope Sixtus IV, in 1476, introduced the feast of the Immaculate Conception in Rome, while Clement XI, in 1708, extended it to the entire Catholic Church.
The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God reached its peak and triumph during the reign of Pope Pius IX (1846-1878), who by his Bull of the 8th of December, 1854, proclaimed the Immaculate Conception a dogma of faith. In this Bull it was declared “that the Most Blessed Virgin Mary in the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted to her by almighty God through the merits of Christ Jesus, Saviour of mankind, was preserved from all stain of original sin this is a doctrine revealed by God and, therefore, must be held firmly and constantly by all faithful Christians.” Four years later on the 25th of March, 1858, the Most Pure Virgin Mary, in her apparition to St. Bernadette Soubirou, when asked what her name was, declared to the whole world: “I am the Immaculate Conception.” The Latin Church celebrates this feast on the 8th of December.
Feast of the Conception of St. Ann in Our Church
Although the Eastern Orthodox Churches do not formally accept the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, nevertheless, in practice they, too, believe and profess this dogma. A whole procession of holy Fathers of the Eastern Church, beginning with St. Ephrem the Syrian, either allude to or explicitly express their faith in the Immaculateness of the Most Holy Mother of God. In his Nisibian Hymns St. Ephrem the Syrian says:
“You, O Lord, and your Mother, are alone in every respect holy, for there is neither in You, O Lord, nor in Your Mother any stain of sin.”
Faith in the Immaculate Conception is revealed in the doctrine of St. Sophronius of Jerusalem, St. Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople and St. John Damascene. The latter, in his sermon on the Dormition of the Mother of God says: “Your immaculate body which was preserved from all stain did not remain in the earth.” In our services we have numerous expressions pertaining to the immaculateness and the all-holiness of the Mother of God. A very beautiful prayer to the Mother of God which concludes the Small Compline service, ascribed to St. Ephrem, begins with the words: “Undefiled, immaculate, incorrupt, Most Pure Virgin, Divine Maiden and Queen…”
A whole gamut of Ukrainian theologians of the Kyievan School of the seventeenth-eighteenth centuries taught and defended the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Lazar Baranovych (+1694), once the rector of the Kyieven-Mohylian Academy and later the Bishop of Chernihiv, said:
“We all can truly say: ‘For behold in guilt I was born; in sin my mother conceived me. But you are the only one to whom these words do not apply, for you were not conceived in sin nor were you born in guilt. It was clearly imperative that you be conceived without sin, for you had to receive Him, who was to free the world from sin and destroy all iniquity.”
(Sermons for the great Feasts).
Joanicius Galiatowskyj (†1688), rector of the Kyievan-Mohylian Academy, in his second sermon on the Nativity of the Most Pure Virgin Mary, recalling her various prefigurements in the Old Testament and commenting on her privileges, says:
“The third great privilege which God bestowed upon the Most Pure Virgin is that He preserved her from original sin, for the Most Pure Virgin Mary was conceived and born without original sin… on the soul of the Most Pure Virgin there was no original sin, but the grace of God. For this reason, the angel Gabriel said to her: ‘Hail, full of grace the Lord is with you. These words of the angel enable us to understand the immaculate conception of the Most Pure Virgin. When a container is filled with oil, nothing can be added to it, not water, nor anything else for that matter, for there is simply no room. So too, in the Most Pure Virgin there is no room either for original sin or for any other kind of sin, for she is full of God’s grace.”
(Key to Understanding) At their Chapter in Zhyrovyci, 1661, the Basilian Order decided to extend throughout the entire Order the celebration of the feast of the Immaculate Conception to eight days instead of one. This decision was made in thanksgiving to the Most Holy Mother of God for her special protection of the Uniate Church.
The Ukrainian Catholic Church in Galicia, after the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, began to call the feast of the Conception of St. Ann “the Immaculate Conception of the Most Holy Mother of God.” The Synod of Lviv (1891), places the feast of the Immaculate Conception among the Marian feasts and orders that it be celebrated after the manner of the great Marian feasts, with a one day pre-feast and a seven day post-feast. The Synod also approved the service of the Immaculate Conception, which was composed by Father Isidor Dolnytskyj, and directed that it be used in all the churches. The older service of the Conception of St. Ann was made the pre-feast of the Immaculate Conception.
How wonderfully and marvellously God prepared her who was to be the Mother of our Saviour. She full of grace, holy, most pure and immaculate became the worthy tabernacle, in which the Son of God dwelt. Our ancient Slavonic Prologue contains the following instruction for the feast of the Conceрtion of St. Ann:
“Beloved, today is the beginning of our salvation. In the womb of the righteous Ann, after the annunciation of the angel, the grand-daughter of the Just Jesse, of the line of David, is conceived… And know beloved, that today we are celebrating the Conception of our Lady the Most Pure Queen the God-bearer, Mother of God. Therefore, let us hasten to her church with joy, and remain there in awesome prayer; with a vigil let us open the doors of the heavenly chamber, and let us beautify ourselves with prayer, alms and fasting. Thus let us celebrate the holy Conception of the Most Pure Lady the Mother of God devoutly and with joy, for She unceasingly prays to her Son and our God for us.”