Church Traditions and Veneration
The Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church commemorate Anna as a saint, Anna the Prophetess. The Eastern Orthodox Church consider Anna and Simeon the God-Receiver as the last prophets of Old Testament and observes their feast on February 3/February 16 as the synaxis (afterfeast) following the Presentation of Christ, which Orthodox tradition calls "The Meeting of Our Lord and God and Savior, Jesus Christ".
Also her figure is drawn in the icons of the Presentation of Christ, together with the Holy Child and the Virgin Mary, Joseph and Simeon the God-Receiver. Orthodox tradition considers that Christ met his people, Israel, in the persons of those two, Simeon and Anna. Anna is often placed behind Mary. Anna either raises her hands to Christ, to show people him as Christ, or hands a scroll which is attributed often to prophets in Orthodox iconography.
Read more about this topic: Anna (Bible)
Famous quotes containing the words church, traditions and/or veneration:
“To impose celibacy on such a large body as the clergy of the Catholic Church is not to forbid it to have wives but to order it to be content with the wives of others.”
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (17121778)
“But generally speaking philistinism presupposes a certain advanced state of civilization where throughout the ages certain traditions have accumulated in a heap and have started to stink.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (18991977)
“Erasmus was the light of his century; others were its strength: he lighted the way; others knew how to walk on it while he himself remained in the shadow as the source of light always does. But he who points the way into a new era is no less worthy of veneration than he who is the first to enter it; those who work invisibly have also accomplished a feat.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)