The Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos (Mother of God) into the Temple, better known in Western Countries as the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is one of the twelve Great Feasts celebrated by the Eastern Orthodox Church. Four of them are dedicated to the Holy Virgin: the Annunciation, the Nativity of the Theotokos, the Dormition of the Theotokos - the Feast of Assumption in the West - and the Presentation of the Theotokos. For the Eastern Orthodox Church the Presentation falls on November 21 – that is on December 4 following the Gregorian Calendar. In the Orthodox Church the feast always falls during the Nativity Fast, but for this feast the fasting rules are weakened, and fish, oil and wine may be eaten.

The feast is associated with an event we do not find in the New Testament, but in the apocryphal Infancy Narrative of James, and preserved also in some texts of the Fathers of the Church.

Up to three years Virgin Mary lived in Nazareth with her parents. When she was three years old, Joachim and Anna did not forget their promise to dedicate their child to the service of God.  The child Mary, hearing about her impending settlement in the Jerusalem temple, was not afraid of being separated from the family and did not cry, but willingly submitted to her parents’ will.

After an appropriate preparation for the trip, Joachim and Anna solemnly led their daughter to Jerusalem. The trip from Nazareth to Jerusalem lasted three days, with few stops for rest. Finally, the family reached the temple of Jerusalem. Priests came to greet her, headed by Zachariah. He took Mary's hand and led her to the sanctuary. Having  left their daughter in the temple, Joachim and Anna returned home, rejoicing and thanking God, who granted them the fulfillment of their vow to Him. Being childless, they had received a heavenly message that they would bear a child, so they had decided to make the gift of their daughter to the Temple in thanksgiving. Mary remained in the Temple until puberty, at which point she was promised as wife to Joseph, according to Tradition.

A profound mystery covers Mary’s infancy at home and her life in the temple of Jerusalem. Likely during her stay at the Temple the Blessed Virgin grew up together with a group of pious virgins, praying and reading the Holy Scriptures, engaging in handicrafts, mainly growing in a deep love for God.

The feast of the Entry of the Blessed Virgin in the Temple of Jerusalem likely originated from the dedication of the Basilica of Saint Mary the New, near the site of the ruined Temple of Jerusalem, in the year 543. In the 9th century this devotion was largely diffused in Southern Italy, the official feast was established in the 11th century in the Byzantine Church, but only in 1472 was introduced in the Roman Missal.

The event of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a symbol of God’s grace to humanity, the preaching of salvation, the promise of the coming of Christ. For the Roman Catholic Church, the dedication of herself to God from her very childhood was made by the Blessed Virgin under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who filled her with grace at her Immaculate Conception. 

Russian stone art of building was inherited from Byzantium. It gave the Russian Orthodox Church all the symbolism of its temples and cathedrals. The basis of the church is a cross, symbol of Christianity and salvation. The dome is the “head” of the building, and Christ Pantocrator is frequently represented in it, the drum is a “neck" that usually rests upon representations of the Apostles.

The temple is strictly oriented from West to East. The main sacred part of it, the altar, faces East. The altar has rich meanings: it’s a symbol of the cave where Jesus was born, a symbol of Golgotha were He was crucified and finally a symbol of the Heavenly altar where Christ sat on the right hand of God-Father after resurrection. The Eastern apse is divided into three parts, each has its own entrance: the altar is in the center, the right part of the apse is the place where bread and wine are prepared for the bloodless sacrifice of the Eucharist, the left part of the apse is where priests and deacons are vesting into ritual clothing.

An ambo and an iconostasis separate the nave from the sanctuary, having at its centre the altar, where only consecrated people can enter. Iconostasis is a wooden wall with niches for icons. It was introduced into the Russian Orthodox Church from Byzantium, where it was called "templon". In the very beginning there was only a cross above the ambo, later an icon of Christ the Savior was added, then the number of icons increased within centuries. Nowadays the number of rows of icons may vary from 2 to 5 in Russian Churches.

The lowest raw includes the icons of the saint patron of the church, the Holy Mother, Jesus and the Trinity. Above it there is the "Deesis": Christ sitting on his throne surrounded by the apostles, John the Baptist , archangels and Fathers of the Church who pray to Jesus. The position of the Deesis depends on the number of rows of icons of the iconostasis. Deesis is a symbol of the hope that better times will come for all believers.

The head of the temple and its vaults rest on four pillars, symbolizing the four Gospels. Pillars divide the inner space into four naves, because the church symbolizes the Ark that save believers among the storms of the sea of everyday secular life. The inner sphere of the dome may be decorated with frescos of Christ or the Ascension, walls and pillars with frescos of saints. The drum may be divided into various parts by windows: if so, the wall is decorated with murals of Apostles or Prophets.

The number “3”, symbol of the Trinity, has a prominent meaning in the architectural plan of any Orthodox church. One dome symbolizes Christ, three domes the Trinity, five domes Christ and the four evangelists, thirteen Christ and the 12 apostles.

An ancient tradition still exists in the Orthodox Church: believers come up to the icons of the saint patron of the church , the Holy Virgin and Christ, kiss them and touch them with their foreheads. This tradition goes back to early centuries, when believers hugged, kissed and touched the shoulder of each other when they met. The icon is somehow the living presence of the portrayed saint in the church: he or she is not only among us, but one of us in this very moment and takes part in liturgy. Thus believers show their respect to icons as living saints.