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Disambig gray.svg Note:  For other meanings, see  Annunciation (disambiguation) .


Hail Mary, full of grace! .
By  Botticelli at the  Metropolitan Museum of Art in  New York .
The  Annunciation , also known as the  Annunciation of the Virgin Mary , is the Christian celebration of the announcement by  Archangel Gabriel to the  Virgin Mary  that she would be the mother of  Jesus Christ . Despite her  virginity , Mary would  miraculously conceive  a child who would be called the  Son of God . Gabriel also told Mary that he should call the child  Jesus  ("Savior"). Many Christians celebrate this event at the Annunciation feast on  March 25 , exactly nine months before  Christmas . According to the  Bible  (in  Luke 1:26), the Annunciation occurred in the  "sixth month"  of the pregnancy of  Elizabeth , Mary's cousin and mother of  John the Baptist .
Both the  Catholic  and  Orthodox churches  maintain that the event took place in  Nazareth , but disagree with the precise location. The Church of the Annunciation  marks the place according to the former, while the  Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation  is preferred by the latter.
The Annunciation is also one of the most important themes of  Christian art  in general, particularly during the  Middle Ages  and the Renaissance.

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Annunciation .
By  El Greco , at  the Prado Museum ,  Madrid .
A more detailed description of the Annunciation is given in the  Gospel of St. Luke  ( Luke 1: 26-38 ):
“26. When  Elizabeth  was in the sixth month, the  angel Gabriel  was sent by God to a city of  Galilee called Nazareth, 27. to a virgin betrothed to a man named  Joseph of the  house of David . The virgin was called  Mary . 28. The angel came into her and said, “ Rejoice, full of grace! The Lord is with you . ” 29. She was disturbed by these words and began to wonder what the greeting would mean. 30. The angel then said: “Do not be afraid, Mary! You have found  grace  with God. 31. Thou shalt conceive and bear a son, and shalt call his name  Jesus.. 32. He will be great; he will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. 33. He shall reign over Jacob's seed forever  , and his kingdom shall have no end. 34. Mary then asked the angel, “How will this happen if I do not know a man?” 35. The angel answered, “The  Holy Spirit  will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore he that is to be born shall be called holy, the  Son of God . 36. And Elizabeth your kinswoman conceived a son in her old age. This is already the sixth month of what was called barren, 37. for nothing is impossible with God. ” 38. Mary said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord! Let it be done to me according to your word. ” And the angel departed."
-  Luke 1: 26-38 .
Another, more brief, is in the  Gospel of St. Matthew  ( Matthew 1: 18-21 ):
“18. Now the origin of Jesus Christ was thus: Mary his mother was betrothed to Joseph, and before they came to life she was pregnant by the action of the Holy Ghost. 19. Joseph, her husband, being fair and unwilling to denounce her publicly, considered secretly dismissing her. 20. But when that thought came to him, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, and said to him, “Joseph, Son of David, do not be afraid to receive Mary your wife; what was generated in it comes from the Holy Spirit. 21. She shall bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."
The text of the Annunciation as reported in the  Gospels  served as the basis for the creation of the Hail Mary prayer  , which begins with Gabriel's greeting to Mary ("Hail Mary, full of grace! The Lord is with you!" -  Hail Mary, full gratia! Dominus vobiscum ). The prayer then continues with the Excerpt from the  Visitation .

Celebration;



Annunciation
By  Leonardo da Vinci at  the Uffizi Gallery in  Florence .

Western traditions;

In  the liturgical calendar  of the Catholic ,  Anglican  and  Lutheran Churches  , the date of the feast is changed whenever it falls on  Holy Week  or on a  Sunday . To avoid Sunday before Holy Week, the following day (March 26) will be the day of celebration. In years such as 2008, when March 25 fell on Easter, the Annunciation was celebrated on Monday after the  eighth  of Easter , which is the Sunday after Easter [1]  .
When the Anno Domini calendar system   was first introduced by  Dionysus Exigue  in 525 AD, it marked the beginning of  the new year  on March 25, for, according to Christian theology, the new age of  divine grace  began with Incarnation of Christ , of which the Annunciation is the first act.
In the  Latin rite  of  the Catholic Church , the Annunciation is a  Joyful Mystery of  the  Holy Rosary .

Oriental traditions;



 Annunciation Icon .
At  St. Catherine's Monastery ,  Sinai ,  Egypt .
In  Eastern Christianity , Mary is called  Theotokos  ("Mother of God"). The   traditional troparion (hymn of the day) of the Annunciation dates back to the time of  Athanasius of Alexandria [2]  .
The Annunciation Feast is one of the  Great Feasts  of the liturgical year. Being the first act of the  Incarnation of Jesus , the Annunciation is so important in Eastern theology that the   Festive Divine Liturgy of  St. John Chrysostom  is always celebrated on March 25th, regardless of when that day falls, even if it is Pascha Day  , a coincidence that is called  Kyriopascha [3]  . It is also the only possibility for the Divine Liturgy to be celebrated on the  Great and Holy Friday,  if it falls on March 25. Because of this, the ritual of celebration of this feast is one of the most complicated of all the liturgy of  the Orthodox Church .

Party Origins;

This feast was observed very early by Christian calendars. According to Talley, an Anglican liturgist  , the date is based on Jewish tradition  and  rabbinic thinking . He notes that births and deaths, beginnings and endings, were already celebrated on a specific date. Given the supreme importance of 14 Nisan, the date of the Passover, it was an obvious choice for new Christians to mark the beginning of their history, the Annunciation of the coming of Jesus Christ.
Talley, in the treatise 'De solstitiia et aequinoctia conceptionis et nativitatis domini nostri iesu Christi et iohannis baptista', is based on the fact that the angel Gabriel appeared to  Zacharias , Elizabeth's husband and father of  John the Baptist , when he was serving on the Most Holy Altar  of the  Temple of Jerusalem , when he served as High Priest during the Feast of  Yom Kippur , which places  John the Baptist's conception  at the  Feast of Tabernacles  and his birth nine months later, near the  summer solstice  (  Northern Hemisphere ). Like the  Gospel of St. Luke states that the Annunciation occurred in the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, it must have occurred near  the spring equinox , that is, the Jewish Passover Feast  .
The first allusions to the feast are found in the canon of the  Tenth Council of Toledo  (656). The  Council of Constantinople (692) prohibited the celebration of feasts during  Lent , except Sunday ( the Lord's Day ) and the Annunciation. An even older origin has already been claimed for her, claiming that the feast was quoted in the  sermons  of  Athanasius of Alexandria  and  Gregory Thaumaturge , but both documents are now considered  spurious . The  Sync of Worcester ,  England , in 1240, prohibited all menial labor on this date.

Annunciation in art;

The Annunciation is one of the most frequent themes of  Christian art , both in the East and West, especially during the Middle Ages  and the  Renaissance , and is featured in the repertoire of almost all great teachers. The images of the Virgin Mary and Angel Gabriel, emblematic of purity and grace, were the favorite theme in Roman Catholic Marian art. Works on the theme were created by artists such as  Sandro Botticelli ,  Leonardo da Vinci ,  Caravaggio ,  Duccio  and  Murillo , among others. The  mosaic of  Pietro Cavallini  in  Santa Maria in Trastevere  (1291), the fresco  of  Giotto  in the  Scrovegni Chapel  in  Padua  (1303), the fresco by  Domenico Ghirlandaio  in the church of  Santa Maria Novella  (1486) and the golden sculpture of  Donatello  in the  Basilica of Santa Croce (1435), both in  Florence , are famous examples.

Gallery

 

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