According to Holy Tradition, the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos* into the Temple took place in the following manner. The parents of the Virgin Mary, Saints Joachim and Anna, praying for an end to their childlessness, vowed that if they were given a child, they would dedicate it to the service of God. When the Most Holy Virgin reached the age of three, the holy parents decided to fulfill their vow. They gathered together their relatives and acquaintances, and dressed the All-Pure Virgin in Her finest clothes. Singing sacred songs and with lighted candles in their hands, virgins escorted Her to the Temple (Ps. 44/45:14-15). There the High Priest and several priests met the handmaiden of God. In the Temple, fifteen high steps led to the sanctuary, which only the priests and High Priest could enter. (Because they recited a Psalm on each step, Psalms 120-134 are called “Psalms of Ascent.”) The child Mary, so it seemed, could not make it up this stairway. But just as they placed Her on the first step, strengthened by the power of God, She quickly went up the remaining steps and ascended to the highest one. Then the High Priest, through inspiration from above, led the Most Holy Virgin into the Holy of Holies, where only the High Priest entered once a year to offer a purifying sacrifice of blood. Therefore, all those present were astonished at this most unusual occurrence.

After entrusting their child to the Heavenly Father, Joachim and Anna returned home. The All-Holy Virgin remained in the quarters for virgins near the Temple. 

(Adapted from the Orthodox Church in America)

Hymns of the Feast

Troparion — Tone 4

Today is the prelude of the good will of God, / of the preaching of the salvation of mankind. / The Virgin appears in the temple of God, / in anticipation proclaiming Christ to all. / Let us rejoice / and sing to her: / "Rejoice, O Fulfillment of the Creator's dispensation."

Kontakion — Tone 4

The most pure Temple of the Savior; / the precious Chamber and Virgin; / the sacred Treasure of the glory of God, / is presented today to the house of the Lord. / She brings with her the grace of the Spirit, / therefore, the angels of God praise her: / “Truly this woman is the abode of heaven.”

*Theotokos.  Theotokos is a Greek word that means "Mother of God" and is used by all Orthodox jurisdictions, which slightly resemble denominations.  It is the most commonly used term for the Holy Virgin Mary at St Brendan's.  However, Theotokos is completely interchangeable with the terms Mother of God and with Holy Virgin Mary.

The Akathist of Thanksgiving, "Glory to God for All Things". The title of this service is taken from the last words uttered by St John Chrysostom, "glory to God for all things," as his life ebbed away in the presence of the Lord at the end of his forced journey of cruel exile in 407 AD. The akathist was written in Russian by Metropolitan Tryphon (Prince Boris Petrovich Turkestanov) shortly before his death in 1934 at the height of the Soviet persecution. Its radiant spirit of transcendent gratefulness quietly sustained Orthodox Christians suffering under that violent persecution of the Church. 

The manuscript of the akathist comes to us from Archpriest Grigoriy Petrov, imprisoned in a Soviet labor camp. It was found among his personal effects after his death in the gulag in 1940, or perhaps 1942, by which some assumed at first that he was the author. Nevertheless, even if he didn't compose it, Fr Grigoriy's transcendent joy in the midst of suffering is being transmitted to us through this akathist that he not only certainly covertly celebrated for the persecuted faithful, but also preserved for us who follow.  

This hymn asserts again and again an Orthodox view of man and the world, an optimistic anthropology and cosmology that contrasts starkly with the pessimism of the West. This theme of thankful praise, born in the midst of terrible sufferings, fills the akathist with the beauty and the joy found in everyday blessings by hearts attuned to gratefulness in God.

The power of the akathist lies in ascribing gratefulness to Christ for every event in every facet of life, in joy, in pain, in family, in friends, in work, in livestock and pets, in sufferings, in death. The format of the akathist, beginning with Ode 1 and Ikos 1, and then reversing that to end with Ikos 1 and Ode 1, collects our tears of joy and sorrow, and presents them again to God, offering them as in an inclusio between the bookends, between the parentheses, between the arms of our Everlasting King.

—St Brendan the Navigator Orthodox Church, Astoria, Oregon

(Adapted from St Basil Greek Orthodox Church, San Jose; Akathist of Thanksgiving adapted from St John the Baptist Cathedral (ROCOR) in Washington DC)

*An akathist is an Orthodox hymn composed in a particular style of alternating parts that are sung and chanted.  An akathist can be to God like this akathist, to a saint, to a holy event or to a Person of the Holy Trinity.