Saints Joachim and Anne

Life story

The Gospels say nothing about the parents of Mary, and the names Joachim and Anne are absent from the New Testament. The earliest source to give them is the Protoevangelium of James, an apocryphal work written around the second century. The Church does not regard it as Scripture, and scholars treat it as legendary rather than historical. Everything below is therefore tradition only.

According to the Protoevangelium, Joachim was a wealthy and devout man, and Anne was his wife; the couple had long been childless. Joachim was rebuked in the Temple for having no children and withdrew to the wilderness to pray and fast, while Anne also prayed to God. In the story, each is told by an angel that they will have a child. Mary was then born and, while still small, was presented to the Temple.

Veneration of Anne spread in the East from about the sixth century, with churches built in her honour, among them one in Jerusalem near the Bethesda pool. In the West devotion to her grew strongly between roughly the tenth and fifteenth centuries. The two once had separate feast days; since 1969 the General Roman Calendar celebrates them together on 26 July. Their place of birth and burial is not known with certainty. In 2021 Pope Francis established the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly and placed it under their patronage.

Works and witness

• First named in the Protoevangelium of James, second century
• Their names are absent from the New Testament
• Veneration of Anne spread in the East from about the sixth century
• Celebrated together on 26 July in the Roman calendar

Patron of

Grandparents

Saints from the same country

Saint Peter, Saint Andrew the Apostle, Saint James the Greater, Saint John the Apostle

References

• Protoevangelium of James
• Martyrologium Romanum
• New Testament – Gospel according to Luke

Written by Anawim from documented history. Some details about ancient saints rest on tradition and are marked as such.