Holy Righteous Ancestors of God, Saints Joachim and Anna

Joachim and Anna are known not from the Gospels but from the second-century Protoevangelium of James and later tradition. They are named there as the parents of the Virgin Mary. Joachim is said to have been of the house of David and Anna the daughter of a priest, and they lived in Nazareth in Galilee.

The tradition tells that they were long childless; when Joachim was turned away at a feast in the temple because he had no children, he went to the desert to fast, and Anna wept in her garden. An angel then told both that a daughter would be born to them. When Mary was three, they brought her to the temple, as they had promised. The Church keeps their memory on 9 September, the day after the feast of Mary's birth.