Prophet 1st century

Righteous Anna the Prophetess

1st century BC – 1st century AD

Also known as Anna the daughter of Phanuel

An aged widow and prophetess who served God with fasting and prayer night and day in the Temple, and who recognized and proclaimed the infant Christ at His Meeting.

Feast Day

February 3

Also Aug 28

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Commemorated as

The Holy and Righteous Anna the Prophetess, Daughter of Phanuel

Life

Anna the Prophetess is known from the Gospel of Luke (2:36-38), where she appears at the Presentation of the infant Christ in the Temple at Jerusalem. The evangelist identifies her as the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser (Asher), and records that she had lived with a husband for seven years from her virginity before being widowed. Thereafter she did not depart from the Temple but served God with fasting and prayer night and day.

According to Luke, Anna had reached the age of about eighty-four, though the Greek phrasing is read in two ways: most translations and the Orthodox synaxarion take her to have been eighty-four years old, while some interpreters read the text as stating she had been a widow for eighty-four years, which would place her age considerably higher. Coming forward at the very hour that Simeon received the Child, she gave thanks to God and spoke of the infant to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

The Orthodox Church commemorates Anna together with the Righteous Simeon the God-Receiver, and reckons the two of them among the last prophets of the Old Testament, whose recognition of the Messiah at the Meeting of the Lord marks the meeting of the old covenant and the new. Her principal commemoration falls on February 3, the day after the feast of the Meeting of the Lord (February 2), and she is also commemorated on August 28.

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Life and Temple Service

The Gospel account gives Anna's lineage with unusual precision: she was the daughter of Phanuel and belonged to the tribe of Aser, one of the tribes of Israel. After a marriage of seven years she was widowed, and from that time she devoted herself wholly to the Temple, where, in Luke's words, she worshipped with fastings and prayers night and day. The Orthodox synaxarion presents this long widowhood as a life of strict piety sustained over decades.

Luke names Anna a prophetess, a title the Church retains in her commemoration as 'the Prophetess.' Her prophetic role is realized at the Presentation, when she recognizes in the infant brought for dedication the awaited Messiah and proclaims him openly.

The Meeting of the Lord

When the Theotokos and Joseph brought the forty-day-old Christ to the Temple to be presented to God as a firstborn according to the Mosaic law, Anna came forward at the same hour as Simeon the God-Receiver. The synaxarion relates that she heard the prophetic words Simeon spoke to the Mother of God, and that, together with him, she glorified God and told all present that the Messiah had come into the world.

Because of this joint witness, Orthodox tradition pairs Anna closely with Simeon, treating the two as the final prophetic voices of the Old Covenant who greet the New. Her February 3 commemoration is set as a synaxis on the day after the feast of the Meeting of the Lord, binding her remembrance to the Gospel event in which she appears.

Notes

Also commemorated Aug 28.

Sources: OCA Synaxarion (oca.org), Feb 3