Great Feasts

The feast of the Resurrection of Jesus, called Pascha (Easter), is the greatest of the feasts of the Eastern Orthodox Church (and of the Eastern Catholic Churches of the Byzantine Rite), and as such is called the "feast of feasts". In addition, there are other days of great importance in the life of the Church: the Twelve Great Feasts (Greek: Δωδεκάορτον).

Eight great feasts in honor of Jesus Christ, and four great feasts honoring the Virgin Mary — the Theotokos — comprise The Twelve Great Feasts.

Besides the Twelve Great Feasts, the Orthodox Church knows five other feasts that rank as great feasts, yet without being numbered among the twelve. They are: the Circumcision of Christ (1 January), the Nativity of St. John the Baptist (24 June), the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June), the Beheading of St John the Baptist (29 August), and the Protecting Veil of the Theotokos (1 October).

Mary was born to elderly and previously barren parents by the names of Joachim and Anna (now saints), in answer to their prayers. Orthodox Christians do not hold to the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, in which it is taught that Mary was preserved from the ancestral sin that befalls us all as descendants of Adam and Eve, in anticipation of her giving birth to the sinless Christ. The Orthodox believe that Mary, and indeed all mankind, was born only to suffer the consequences of the ancestral sin (being born into a corrupt world surrounded by temptations to sin), the chief of which was the enslavement to Death, and thus needed salvation from this enslavement, like all mankind. The Roman Catholic Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception also recognizes that Mary was in need of salvation, viewing her as prevented from falling into the scar of sin, instead of being pulled up out of it. Orthodox thought does vary on whether Mary actually ever sinned, though there is general agreement that she was cleansed from sin at the Annunciation.

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