From the Prologue of Ochrid
Saint Joachim was the son of Barpathir, of the tribe of Judah and a descendant of King David. Anna was the daughter of the priest Matthan, of the tribe of Levi, as was the high priest Aaron. This Matthan had three daughters: Mary, Zoia, and Anna. Mary was married in Bethlehem and bore Salome; Zoia was also married in Bethlehem and bore Elizabeth, the mother of Saint John the Forerunner; and Anna was married in Nazareth to Joachim, and in her old age bore the most holy Theotokos Mary. Fifty years Joachim and Anna lived in marriage and were childless. They lived a God-pleasing and quiet life, and of all their income they used only one third for themselves, distributed another to the poor, and offered the third to the Temple. And they were quite well-to-do. Once when in old age they went to Jerusalem to offer sacrifice to God, the high priest Issachar reproached them, saying to Joachim: "You are not worthy to have your gifts received from your hands, for you are childless." So too others who had children pushed Joachim behind them as unworthy. This greatly saddened these two aged souls, and they returned home with great sorrow. Then both fell to prayer before God, that He would work a miracle for them as He had once done for Abraham and Sarah, and grant them a child to comfort them in their old age. God sent them His angel, who announced to them the birth of "a most blessed daughter, through whom all the peoples of the earth shall be blessed, and through whom shall come the salvation of the world." And immediately Anna conceived, and in the ninth month she gave birth to the Holy Virgin Mary. Saint Joachim lived eighty years on earth, and Anna seventy-nine, and they departed to the Lord.
