Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

In all traditions of Christianity, Mary plays an important role as the woman who gave birth to the Son of God as a human in Bethlehem. Therefore, the calendars of the various traditions include a whole series of "Marian feasts," with which they commemorate individual events from the life of Mary: Among these is the feast of the "Annunciation of the Mother of God," which is celebrated on December 8th each year. The determination of December 8th is based on the observation that a woman's pregnancy typically lasts nine months—which is why the date for the feast was calculated to be nine months before the feast of the birth of Mary on September 8th. Its date in the year, in turn, probably resulted from the consecration day of the Church of St. Anne, the mother of Mary, in Jerusalem, which was consecrated on September 8.

The feast of the "Conception of the Mother of God" is given different significance in the various traditions of Christianity. The Orthodox Churches of the Byzantine traditions refer to the apocryphal text known as the Protoevangelium of James, which likely originated in the mid-2nd century. In it, apparently, about the depiction of the announcement of the birth of Jesus to Mary in the canonical gospels, it describes how Anna and Joachim, the parents of Mary, are childless and turn to God with a request for a child. He then sends an angel who announces to them that God has granted their request—whereupon the parents promise to hand over the child to the priests at the temple in Jerusalem so that it may grow up there among the temple virgins. Thus, the Eastern tradition prepares the biblical tradition that Mary, as a virgin, would bear a child.

From the East, the feast seems to have entered the Latin Church, where it gained a different dogmatic significance. In the year 1854, Pope Pius IX. issued the Catholic belief (= dogma) in Rome that Mary was conceived without sin. This decree was intended to express that the Mother of God was free from "original sin," which, according to the teachings of the Latin Church Father Augustine, is passed down from generation to generation. Regarding this church festival, women were previously prohibited from working on December 8th. Even today, December 8th is a public holiday in Austria, Liechtenstein, and the Catholic cantons of Switzerland; in Italy, Spain, and in Malta.