In the introduction to the services in the Festal Menaion, Fr. (now Metropolitan) Kallisos said that the Church does not insist upon the historical acuracy, much less belief in, the details of the story of Our Lady’s Entrance, but the inner meaning is clear: The Incarnation was not a casual or fortuitous event, but the fruilt of long planning, and from the first moment of her existence, and even long before, the Theotokos was a special object of God’s watchful care.
