A great feast of the Lord

The Meeting of the Lord in the Temple

Forty days after His birth, the Mother of God and Joseph brought the Child Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem. The Elder Simeon took Him in his arms and called Him “a light to lighten the Gentiles,” and the Prophetess Anna met Him there too. Simeon also foretold to His Mother that a sword would pierce her own soul.

The dates

Kept on: 2 February (15 February on the Old Calendar)
Next, New Calendar: 2 February 2027
Next, Old Calendar: 15 February 2027

The New Calendar (the Greek, Antiochian, Romanian and Bulgarian churches, the OCA and most converts) keeps fixed feasts on the church date; the Old Calendar (the Russian, Serbian and Georgian churches, Jerusalem and Mount Athos) keeps them 13 days later. Pascha and the feasts that follow it are kept on the same day by both.

How the day is kept

Orthodox mothers keep the same custom: on the fortieth day after a birth, mother and child come to church together, and the priest reads the prayers of the fortieth day.

Russian Orthodox Christians remember Simeon's words in the icon of the Mother of God “Softener of Evil Hearts,” with seven swords piercing her heart, and pray before it that hardened hearts may be softened.