Icon of Saint Anna 21st c.-(Standing) - 00STAN02

Saint Anna, whose name derives from the Hebrew Hannah meaning "favor" or "grace," is revered in Christian tradition as the mother of the Virgin Mary and the grandmother of Jesus Christ. Hailing from the house and line of David, she is not explicitly named in the canonical Gospels of the New Testament. Her story is largely preserved in the Gospel of James, an apocryphal text, which describes how Anna and her husband, Saint Joachim, endured years of childlessness before an angel announced that they would conceive. In gratitude, Anna promised to dedicate her child to God's service, leading the couple to present the three-year-old Mary to the Second Temple.

While devotion to Saint Anna emerged in the Eastern Church as early as the 6th century—where she holds the title "Forbear of God" and is honored in two of the Twelve Great Feasts—her veneration gained widespread prominence in the Western Church around the late 12th century. Traditional iconography portrays her wearing a red robe and green mantle, frequently holding a book or depicted alongside a young Mary and the Infant Christ. In Orthodox tradition, Mary was conceived naturally but cleansed from original sin at the Annunciation, a theological belief artistic cycles captured through the iconic "Meeting at the Golden Gate," where Joachim and Anna embrace after learning of the conception.

In narrative art, Saint Anna appears in major scenes depicting Mary's life, such as her Birth and Presentation, as well as scenes alongside the infant Jesus, though she is absent from the Nativity. She is occasionally confused with Anna the Prophetess from Luke's Gospel, who recognized Jesus as the Messiah at the Presentation in the Temple. Apocryphal accounts trace her extended family—including her sister Sobe, mother of Saint Elizabeth—and depict her travelling to Egypt to rejoin the Holy Family. Because she does not appear alongside an adult Jesus, tradition holds that she died during his youth. In late medieval Germany, she was widely venerated as the matriarch of the Holy Kinship.

Today, Saint Anna and Saint Joachim are jointly invoked in modern devotions for the protection of the unborn. Saint Anna is also celebrated as the patron saint of housewives, grandmothers, cabinet makers, unmarried women, women in labor, and miners.