In the prayer of the Little Entrance the priest asks God to grant that there may be an invisible presence of co-officiating Angels. This is a mystery experienced in the History of the Church by such God-bearing fathers as St Spyridon (it is noted in his Life that 'Angels ministered with him'). The prayer of the Little Entrance reminds the faithful of the fact that the Angels are paragons of incessant glorification of God. The closing words of the prayer refer to the entering of the heavenly into the earthly things.

Until the 7th century the Divine Liturgy started with the entrance of the Book of Gospels in the Nave. The celebrant, after having dressed himself in the vestry, was entering the Nave in his sacred vestments, holding in his hands the Book of Gospels, which he had also taken from the vestry. In case the celebrant was a Bishop it was at this same time that he was entering the Nave to change, in the presence of the faithful, into the High-Priest's vestments.

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The Little Entrance reminds us of the way the laity and the clergy entered the church up to the 7th century. Even today, every time there is an officiating Bishop in the church, he enters the bema immediately after the Little Entrance, symbolizing God, who entered human history with His Incarnation.

According to the Fathers of the Church and the Ecclesiastical Writers, the Divine Liturgy is full of symbolism. But the symbols in Orthodoxy are neither vestiges of the past, nor a representation of events connected with the past in a symbolic, i.e. mysterious and incomprehensible way. A symbol reveals to the faithful the secrets of God's love and at the same time conceals them from the uninitiated—the same applies to the Lord's parables. Symbols in the context of worship are the words, invocations, prayers, acts and gestures, which reveal the mystery of human salvation as was worked by Jesus through His life, words and suffering for us humans and of course through what He promised for the Age to Come. This is why 'remembrance' in the Church does not just mean remembering the things of the past, but rather experiencing the holy history of salvation today, in the present, as is noted in the Church's hymns: 'Today is hung on the tree He who (...)', etc. The symbols are the things we see, which we automatically connect with the truths and notions that we do not see. Thus, any symbolically interpreted part of the Divine Liturgy is either revealing the things to come—our situation in the Kingdom of God (eschatological symbolism)—or familiarizing us with the life of Christ and the Economy of Salvation, i.e. God's plan to save humankind (historical symbolism).

On the basis of all the above, the Little Entrance is a symbol of the Lord's redeeming Incarnation, i.e. of His coming to Earth, through which humanity was called into reconciliation and communion with God. According to another interpretation, the Little Entrance symbolizes the beginning of the teaching and the ministry of Christ. The lifting up of the Book of Gospels signifies that the truth has been revealed.

The blessing of the Little Entrance is in reality a glorification of God, a thanksgiving for God's benefactions

Every sanctifying act in the Church's worship begins with a blessing. The blessing at this point of the Divine Liturgy is a declaration of its ceremonial opening by the entrance of the clergy into the bema. The priest intones: 'Wisdom; stand up', instructing the congregation to accept the teaching of the Lord, who is the Wisdom of God, and give all their attention to God's worship.

In recognition of the divinity of Jesus, who is the Resurrected Lord, a brief hymn is then chanted, called the Little Entrance hymn ('Come, let us worship (...)'). This recognition is a sine qua non for the celebration of the Divine Liturgy. According to St Symeon of Thessalonica, this hymn is a symbol of the acclamation of Christ in His glory, i.e. the acclamation of Christ after His Resurrection and Ascension.