The Nativity of the Theotokos is the feast celebrating the birth of the Virgin Mary. We celebrate it every year on September 8th, and it’s one of the twelve Great Feasts of the Orthodox Church.
This feast marks the beginning of our salvation. Before Christ could be born, Mary had to be born. Before the Incarnation could happen, God prepared a young woman who would say yes to becoming the Mother of God. That’s what we’re celebrating when we keep this feast, not just a birthday, but the start of everything that leads to Christmas and Pascha and our redemption.
The Story Behind the Feast
You won’t find Mary’s birth story in the Bible. The Gospels tell us almost nothing about her early life. But the Church has always known more than what’s written in Scripture alone, because Holy Tradition hands down what the Apostles taught and what the early Christians remembered.
The traditional account comes from an early Christian text called the Protoevangelium of James, written in the second century. It tells us that Mary’s parents were Joachim and Anna, an elderly couple who’d been unable to have children. In a culture where barrenness was seen as a reproach, they carried that grief for years. Joachim even withdrew into the wilderness to fast and pray. Anna wept at home, feeling abandoned by God.
But God heard them. An angel appeared to each of them separately, announcing that Anna would conceive and bear a daughter who would be known throughout the world. Their story echoes other biblical accounts, Sarah and Abraham, Hannah and Elkanah. God specializes in bringing life from barrenness, hope from despair.
When Mary was born, her parents dedicated her to God. Later, according to tradition, they brought her to the Temple when she was three years old, where she was raised until her betrothal to Joseph. The Church has always honored Joachim and Anna as saints, and you’ll see them depicted in icons of Mary’s nativity, often with Anna reclining on a bed while midwives attend to the newborn Mary.
Why This Feast Matters
If you’re coming from a Protestant background, celebrating someone’s birthday besides Jesus might seem strange. We don’t worship Mary. But we do honor her as the highest of all created beings, the one who made the Incarnation possible by her obedience.
Think of it this way: God didn’t just zap Jesus into existence. He worked through human history, through generations, through the faith of people like Joachim and Anna, through the yes of a teenage girl in Nazareth. Mary’s birth is part of God’s plan unfolding in time. It’s the hinge moment when salvation history turns toward its fulfillment.
The liturgical texts for this feast call Mary’s nativity “the beginning of our salvation” and “the prelude of grace.” Before she could become the Theotokos, the God-bearer, she had to be born. Before she could stand at the foot of the Cross, before she could be there in the upper room at Pentecost, she had to enter the world as a baby in her mother’s arms.
How We Celebrate
September 8th kicks off the new church year with joy. The feast has its own Vespers, Matins, and Divine Liturgy, with special hymns proclaiming Mary as the cause of our salvation and the joy of the universe. The Old Testament readings at Vespers point forward to her: passages about Wisdom building her house, about the fruitfulness that comes from God’s grace.
The feast has an afterfeast that extends for several days, and we even have a Synaxis of the Theotokos on September 12th. There’s no fasting on the feast day itself, it’s a time for celebration.
If you’ve never been to a Vespers service for one of the Great Feasts, this is a good one to start with. The hymns are beautiful, and there’s something fitting about beginning the church year by remembering the woman through whom God entered our world. Come a little early if you can. The September heat in Southeast Texas hasn’t quite broken yet, but the evening service brings its own kind of coolness, a sense of something new starting.
This feast reminds us that God works through ordinary people. Joachim and Anna weren’t royalty or religious celebrities. They were faithful Jews who prayed and waited and trusted. Mary herself was a young woman from a nowhere town. But God chose them, prepared them, and through them brought about our salvation. That’s the story we celebrate on September 8th, and it’s a story that’s still unfolding in the Church today.
