The third view was supported by the Protoevangelium
and firmly upheld the belief that Anna conceived Mary as a result of prayer
alone. (De Strycker, La forme, 68, 74, 78; Tischendorf, Evangelia
apocrypha, 6-8) The texts in this group by far outnumber of those in the
other two. Epiphanios the Younger, (PG 43, 488) Sophronios of Jerusalem (550/60-638/9),
(PG 87, 325D-3267A-B) Kosmoas Vestitor (eighty century), (PG 106, 1005B) George
of Nikomedia (nineth century), ({G 1--. 1369; PG 100, 1372C) Niketas David
Paphlagon (ninth century), (PG 106, 20B) patriarch Euthymios (907-12), (PO 19,
443, 451) Leo VI (tenth century), (T. Antonopoulou [ed.], Leonis VI
Sapientis Imperatoris Byzantini Homiliae [Turnhout: Brepols, 2008], 224)
Peter of Argos (tenth century), (K. T. Kyriakopoulos [ed.], Αγιου Πετρου
επισκοπου ‘Αργρους
Βιος και λογοι
[Athens: Iera Mitropoli Argolidos, 1976], 28, 145-7; 32, 225) Theophylaktos of Ochrid (eleventh century), (PG
126, 133B-C) James Kokkinobaphos (twelfth century), (PG 127, 560-B, 569-C-D,
572A) Nikephoros Kallistos (1256-1335), (PG 145, 652B) Gregory Palamas
(fourteenth century), (P. K. Christou, [ed.], Γρηγοριου τοθ
Παλαμα ‘Απαντα
τα εργα v. 11, Ομιλιες
[ΜΓ-ΣΓ] [Thessalonike: Paterikai Ekdoseis Gregorios o
Palamas, 2009], 269), Isidore of Thessalonike
(fourteenth century), (PG 139, 24A, 28B, 52) Nicholas Kabasilas (fourteenth century)
(PO 19, 466, 468-9) and George Scholarios (fifteenth century) all supported it.
(PO 19, 518.22-3) Emperor Leo VI, in his homily on Mary’s Nativity, inspired by
his own efforts to secure a male heir to the throne, (Panou, The Cult,
19-20) referred to the couple’s fasting, prayer and loud cries, (Antonopoulou, Leonis
VI Sapientis, 224) which resulted in the conception of Mary, showing that
the emperor was more inclined to Mary’s conception through prayer than physical
activity. Finally, unlike Theodore the Stoudite, who clearly supported physical
conception, Niketas Paphlagon was the only homilist to vehemently defend St
Anna’s conception through prayer by explicitly denying the physical conception,
which none of the other homilists ever did: ‘Anna conceived by praying rather
than in the natural way’. (PG 106, 20B) (Eirini Panou, “The Theological Substance of St. Anna’s
Motherhood in Byzantine Homilies and Art,” in The Reception of the Virgin in
Byzantium: Marian Narratives in Texts and Images, ed. Thomas Arentzen and
Mary B. Cunningham [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019], 65-66)