Orthodox Feast Days in March
On this page, you’ll find a curated guide to March feast days in the Orthodox Church, with simple explanations, family-friendly ideas, book recommendations, and links to helpful Orthodox Christian resources.
My goal is to simplify feast day planning by providing a clear overview of these feast, along with easy, meaningful ways to celebrate at home using materials you likely already have or can gather with little effort.
These ideas are meant to help families connect what they experience in church with life at home—our little Church. The activities are intentional and purposeful, not added tasks for the sake of staying busy. They are designed to be developmentally appropriate for children, encourage participation, and help parents share the faith in a tangible way.
I enjoy learning about the saints and feast days and making an effort to set these days apart from ordinary ones. My hope is that these resources support families in building consistent, meaningful rhythms that help children understand and remember the faith as they grow. I hope this resource is a blessing to your family.
On this blogpost you will find resources for popular feast days celebrated in the Orthodox Church in March along with links to where to find them!
Scroll down to find some easy ways to live live out the liturgical calendar this month!
Check out my monthly printables for Liturgical Living, now available for download:
Available in Old and New Calendar!
Fun Fact: The date of this feast may have been intentionally chosen around/during Great Lent. The reasons; (1) the number 40 being both the number of martyrs and the number of days in the Fast; (2) the martyrs’ endurance serves as an example to the faithful to persevere to the end (whether that be during Great Lent or life in general) in order to attain their heavenly reward! Check out this recipe for a traditional mucenici.
Make 40 Cookies - If you’re wanting to find a simpler way to remember the 40 Holy Martyrs, try baking 40 cookies! What kid will forget the day and/or story when you made 40 cookies? You can make it extra fun by buying a blue plastic table cloth (representing the lake) from the dollar store and let the kids decorate the cookies on top of the table cloth.
Bake Skylark Buns - There is a pious custom of baking “skylarks” (pastries shaped like skylarks) on this day, because people believed that birds sing at this time to announce the arrival of spring. Skylarks are prepared in honor of the Forty Martyrs. You can find a recipe HERE.
Mucenici Bread - A traditional Romanian tradition in some regions is to make sweet honey walnut breads in the shape of an infinity (8). You can watch this video on YouTube and find the recipe in the caption.
Mucenici Soup - A variation in the traditional Romanian dish in some regions they make a sweet soup with infinity shaped dough. It consists of a sweet soup flavored with vanilla, rum, cinnamon, walnuts, lemon zest and orange peel. You can find the recipe here.
Growing up, my family loved to embrace St Patrick’s day, due to my supposed Irish heritage. We found out later that we have very little Irish heritage, but nonetheless, we loved embracing this feast day by wearing all green, preparing Irish dishes like soda bread, shepherd’s pie and corned beef & cabbage. Occasionally my dad would make green colored foods as well. Since this year, his feast lands on a fasting day, we plan to make a simple soda bread for his feast day to pair with some cabbage soup.
The Annunciation- is one of the 12 Great Feast Days in the Orthodox Church. Bearing the message from heaven, the agent rushes towards Mary. After a moment of humble hesitation, she accepts God’s plan, and the world is changed forever. Now “all generations will call [her] blessed.” (Luke 1:48) The time had come for God to announce to His people the good news, which is what the name of this feast means. The archangel Gabriel called Mary “highly favored” and “Blessed.” In her humility, Mary was troubled at being called such things. But the angel Gabriel reassured her, saying that she had “found favor" with God,” that through “the power of the Highest” she would be the one to give birth to His Son. Mary responded with God-pleasing obedience; “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). This was the good news: Through Mary’s cooperation, God was going to save us by becoming one of us. It is a time for all of us to rejoice and prepare- God is now with us!
Why is this feast placed on March 25th every year? The Church sets aside March 25th as the date we commemorate the feast of the Annunciation because it is 9 months from the Nativity of Christ, on December 25th!
Significance of the Icon of the Annunciation? In the account Protoevangelion of James, there is story of the Annunciation in which the high priest has the temple virigins cast lots for who are to weave the various colors needed for the veil of the temple. Mary was chosen to weave the “true purple”. She took the purple and began to spin it. As she took a pot and went to draw water, she heard a voice saying unto her, “Hail thou who art full of grace, the Lord is with the….” In the icon of the feast, you will see in her left hand she holds a spindle of yarn which depicts the task she was assigned in preparing the purple material to be used in making the veil for the Temple in Jerusalem. Her right hand is raised in a gesture of acceptance in response to Gabriel’s message. Her posture expresses willing cooperation with God’s plan of salvation. She weaves the temple curtain while the Lord of all is being woven in her womb!
A lovely and fun way connect with the feast is by working on a sewing project, weaving, or some other textile project!
Activity Ideas :
Work on creating a Pascha basket cover - As mentioned in the explanation above, the Theotokos weaves the temple curtain while the Lord of all is being woven in her womb! Why not work on a Pascha Basket cover on this special feast? An activity more suited for older children or adults. There are many options available. My favorite source for all things textile is www.avlea.life . On the cheap/very little time--just get a simple piece of nice cloth and hem it. You can embroider a cross at the center (you can always add more embroidery in future years). You can find a Byzantine Crosses pattern HERE. There are several other Pascha Basket patterns or Kits available (click link to view): Pascha Basket Cover, Floret Border, Cycladean Floral Border.
Plant a Mary garden of flowers named after the Theotokos: in this link you can find a list of common flowers associated with Marian themes HERE, but any flowers of your choosing would be lovely as well.
Color an Icon of the Annunciation by the OCA
Buy or Pick Flowers to bring with you to the service to leave before the icon of the Theotokos
Here are some additional feast day ideas for this feast:
Book Recommendations:
Heaven Meets Earth: Celebrating Pascha and the Twelve Great Feasts (page 30) by Ancient Faith Publishing
The Story of Mary the Mother of God by Dorrie Papademetriou
Orthodox Mom Hack:
I want to share a little Orthodox Mom Hack with you that’s been working really well for us lately. In order to consistently read the scriptures or daily saints with my children, I’ve found that having a cookbook stand with either the Bible or a Saint book that lives on the table has helped tremendously! There’s something about that visual reminder of seeing it there as we gather for meal times that makes it both convenient and easy to do. It’s usually one of my children who reminds me “Mom, you’ve gotta read us a new saint story!” They absolutely love it and look forward to it each day.
For reading the lives of the saints:
We’ve recently starting purchasing the “My Synaxarion” series by Potamitis Press and I’m so very happy with it. There is one volume per month and there is a saint for every day of the month! They sell the entire series (12 months), which you can absolutely invest in, or you can do what we’re doing and buy them for birthday gifts, name days, and other special days throughout the year and slowly build up the collection.
