The Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery celebrates a patronal feast today because one of the side chapels of the new Annunciation Cathedral was consecrated to the Entrance of the Most Holy Mother of God to the Temple. The cathedral is in scaffolding but since its side chapel to the feast was consecrated on November 6, 2019, the festive services were held there today, including the Lesser Vespers with the akathist, paraklesis with water blessing, and the Divine Liturgy.

Today the Church commemorates the day when Saints Joachim and Anna, the Ancestors of God, brought the Virgin at the age of three to the Jerusalem temple. She was received by a high priest who said: “It is in you that He has glorified your name in every generation. It is in you that He will reveal the Redemption that He has prepared for His people in the last days.” According to the tradition, that priest was Zacharias, the future father of St. John the Baptist. After he met the child, he brought Her to the Holy of Holies where only the High Priest was permitted to enter once a year. She was then left to grow up in the temple where She spent time immersed in prayer and reading the Holy Scripture.

Venerable St. John of Damascus said that the Most Holy Mother of God “was dedicated to the holy temple of God and remained there making manifest the utmost and the purest kind of lifestyle by shying away from any contacts with the unrighteous men and women.”