ABSTRACT
The cult of St Anna began to gain ground in the eighth century, when a textual 'debate' over the acquisition of her relics among various cities confirmed the first signs of her veneration in Eastern Christendom. This development was reinforced by the introduction of several feasts into the Church calendar, and also by the attribution of certain ideological associations to Anna's namesakes. Pilgrims who, from the sixth century onwards, recorded Mary's birth in the Probatike made no mention of the existence of St Anna's relics in Palestine before the Latin conquest of Jerusalem in 1099. The discovery of Anna's body in Apt is said to have taken place in the first century, when it was supposedly taken from Jerusalem to France. Nikolaou uses among others the example of Anna/Euphemianos and the mother of Peter of Atroa to show that breastfeeding was an important part of raising a child in Byzantine society.
