Icon 'Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos' (15th cent.)

This is the first great feast of the yearly church cycle. Throughout their married life, Righteous Joachim and Anna prayed the Lord to bless them with a child, promising to devote it to God. When they were in their declining years, they were blessed with the daughter named Maria. The icon presents the Nativity of Theotokos in her elderly parents' house in the Galilean town of Nazareth. Anna is sitting on a high couch, while in the lower part of the icon, two servants are preparing water to wash the baby. In the background, there is an image of Joachim. The righteous family gives a good example of endurance, faith, hope and love. The feast was established in the 5th century and was considered one of the major feasts of Byzantium.

Troparion, Tone 4 

Thy nativity, O Virgin Theotokos, hath proclaimed joy to all the world; for from Thee hath shone forth Christ our God, the Sun of righteousness, Who having annulled the curse, hath given His blessing, and having abolished death, hath granted us life everlasting.