Presentation of the Theotokos
21 November 2026 — May this little candle light your home and your children. Happy feast day!
The Presentation of the Theotokos is one of the great feasts of the Orthodox Church. It recalls a tradition that the young Mary, daughter of Joachim and Anna, was brought to the Temple in Jerusalem to be dedicated to God. The story comes from the apocryphal Protoevangelium of James, not from a canonical gospel. The feast falls on 21 November. In Bulgaria it is closely tied to families and children: prayers are read for them and candles are lit in church. In Bulgaria the day is also marked as the Day of the Christian Family and Orthodox Youth. Churches that follow the Julian calendar keep the same date by their own calendar, which falls on 4 December in the Gregorian calendar. The feast has a fixed date and comes in late autumn, when nights are long and stars appear early. That is why it crosses our starry sky as a small candle in a temple of stars.
Flying across the sky: An ethereal, bluish-silver figure made of luminous dots and thin lines, like a constellation: a tiny candle flame drifting slowly through a small temple outlined in stars
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