Joachim

The Holy Righteous Joachim was, according to the tradition of the Church, the husband of Saint Anna, the father of the Most Holy Virgin Mary and the maternal grandfather of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Orthodox Church calls him, together with Anna, an Ancestor of God. Their story appears for the first time in the Protoevangelium of James, of the second century. Joachim is commemorated on 9 September, together with Anna, the day after the Nativity of the Mother of God.

His family

The canonical Gospels say nothing of the parents of the Virgin Mary and do not name them. According to the life written by Saint Demetrius of Rostov, Joachim descended from King David through Nathan: from Nathan was born Levi, from Levi Melchi and Panther, from Panther Barpanther, and from Barpanther Joachim. Anna was the daughter of the priest Matthan, of the tribe of Levi. By tradition they lived at Nazareth in Galilee and were rich and God-⁠fearing people who gave much to the poor.

The prayer for a child

The couple had no children and passed their life in this sorrow, for in that time childlessness was counted a disgrace. On a great feast day Joachim went to Jerusalem with his gifts, but the priest did not accept them, because he had "not raised up offspring in Israel". Grieved, he went away into the wilderness to his flocks and fasted forty days and forty nights, saying that he would neither eat nor drink until the Lord looked on him. Anna, who stayed at home, prayed as well.

The angel of the Lord appeared to both and announced that their prayer was heard and that they would have a daughter of whom the whole world would speak. Joachim returned, and Anna met him at the Golden Gate of Jerusalem and embraced him, saying that she had received the blessing of the Lord and was childless no more. Then Joachim brought offerings to the temple and found no sin in himself.

The birth and the dedication of the Virgin

Anna bore Mary in the ninth month. When the child was three years old, her parents brought her to the temple, according to the vow they had made. This is recalled by the feast of the Entry of the Mother of God into the Temple. By tradition Joachim fell asleep a few years later, at the age of eighty. Anna, at seventy, died two years after him, having stayed beside the temple and her daughter. Eastern tradition says that they died at Jerusalem.

Veneration

The feasts connected with them are the Conception of Saint Anna, on 9 December, nine months before the Nativity of the Mother of God, and the Synaxis of Saints Joachim and Anna, on 9 September. The troparion of the day praises them as righteous people who, living under the Law, gave birth to the Child given by God.

Veneration of Saint Anna is attested in the East from the sixth century, while that of Joachim is newer and spread in the West in the sixteenth century. The church of Saint Anne in Jerusalem, built in 1142 near the Lions' Gate and the pool of Bethesda, stands by tradition on the site of their home. Roman Catholics commemorate him on 26 July, together with Anne, and regard him as the patron of fathers, grandparents and married couples.