Today we celebrate the feast of the Entrance of the Most Holy Mother of God into the Temple, which is one of the twelve Great Feasts of the Church. According to the tradition of the Church, the Theotokos was brought into the Temple when she was three years old and consecrated to God. She was led into the Holy of Holies to be nourished by the angels in order to prepare her for her virginal conception of the Son of God.
This feast is not simply about the details of what happened to the Theotokos in the Temple, but is, more importantly, a symbolic statement about our salvation history. One of the hymns of the feast calls it “the prelude of the good will of God,” for it announces and prefigures the coming of God’s salvation in the Incarnation of Christ that we will celebrate at Christmas.
In this feast we see the Holy Theotokos taken into the temple, and yet we also know that she herself will become “the living temple of the Holy Glory of Christ our God.” She is “the temple that is to hold God” and is consecrated to be the “dwelling place of the Almighty.” She enters the Holy of Holies, but will herself become the Holy of Holies and the “abode of heaven.”
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Today is the prelude of the good pleasure of God, and the proclaiming of the salvation of humankind. In the Temple of God the Virgin is revealed, and beforehand she announces Christ to all. To her then let us cry aloud with mighty voice: Hail, the fulfilment of the Creator’s dispensation!
Apolytikion for the feast