www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Assumption of Mary in Orthodoxy

This is an extension of the discussion on a previous thread. I get the impression from some that the Assumption of our Lady is not "official" teaching in Orthodoxy. I find this odd. I'm pretty sure there is an Orthodox Cathedral somewhere in America called the "Cathedral of the Assumption" and that it is dedicated to the bodily Assumption of the Theotokos. Moreover, I think there are such churches in Russia. How could an Orthodox Cathedral be named after an event that didn't occur? It would be like name a church after a lie. Moreover, I don't know how an Orthodox could attend Liturgy on August 15th and in good faith reject the bodily assumption of Mary into Heaven.

This is just a comment. But I would like to know if anyone knows which American Orthodox cathedral is named after the Assumption.

in Christ,
Marshall

Dear Marshall,

I don't know about that Cathedral, but there are plenty of Orthodox Cathedrals named in honour of the Dormition or Falling-Asleep of the Mother of God (parish churches too!).

To be fair to those Orthodox who have made a point of it, the Orthodox Church refuses to dogmatize on the Assumption, as the RC Church has done.

If ever the RC Church would declare infallibly that John the Baptist was "cleansed of Original Sin" in the womb of his mother, St Elizabeth, at the time of the Visitation of the Mother of God when she exclaimed her Magnificat, the Orthodox would definitely have a thing or two to say about that as well . . .

In fact, since we Orthodox celebrate the feast of St John's Conception, we already believe that he was sanctified and a saint at that point, not at some later time.

But it wouldn't be something defined dogmatically.

I've never heard of an Orthodox Father or Saint ever repudiate that the Mother of God was taken to Heaven, body and soul, by her Son.

But your logic with respect to liturgical theology and the "lex orandi" is correct.

Orthodoxy has a much higher veneration for the Mother of God, however, that youz guyz in the wild, wild West!

You can learn a thing or two from us in terms of the beauty of Orthodox liturgical services, icons et al. (Rather than spending all that time dreaming up new dogmas to define! ).

With respect to the Feast of the Dormition (we never call it "Assumption" as this term is really foreign to Eastern Patristic thought), there are beautiful traditions in the Byzantine-Slavic Churches especially.

There is an Epitaphion or Winding-Sheet depicting the Mother of God in repose - as obtains for Christ during Holy Week.

In Churches dedicated to the Dormition, this Winding-Sheet is enshrined year-round in a special chapel. We have such a chapel in our Church in Mississauga, Ontario, dedicated to the Dormition.

There are special "funeral dirges" and lamentations sung for the feast, the last great Feast of the Church year, which is preceded by a special Marian Lenten fast of two weeks.

Our Church's liturgical services for this Feast is informed by the deuterocanonical book on the Dormition of Mary (that I've seen on noncanonical homepages on the internet).

That moving text shows how the Mother of God became known and loved by many following the Ascension to Heaven of her Son. She was a famed miracle-worker in life and many came to see her.

She returned to Jerusalem to visit the sites associated with the Passion of her Son in preparation for her own death.

Her Son appeared to her and she asked Him to forever hear her prayers for humankind - which was granted etc.

There are also miraculous icons of the Dormition of the Mother of God that are especially venerated in August, such as the famous one of Our Lady of Kyiv that hangs on ropes above the Royal Doors of the iconostasis in the Kyivan Caves Lavra and is lowered on the ropes for people to approach and venerate by kissing.

The only other icon I am aware of that is honoured in this unique way is Our Lady of Pochaiv in western Ukraine.

I hope you don't get the wrong impression simply because an Orthodox sparrow has sung off key here!

Remember St John of Damascus - one sparrow singing doesn't mean that spring is here!

And remember also that Orthodox veneration for the Mother of God outclasses Western veneration any day! Just so you don't fall into the sin of pride here, Big Guy . . .

Alex

Marshall<<This is just a comment. But I would like to know if anyone knows which American Orthodox cathedral is named after the Assumption.>>

Marshall, I don't know about any American Orthodox cathedral named in honor of the Assumption, but off-hand I can think of one Orthodox parish church and one monastery, both in the OCA: St. Mary's Assumption Albanian Orthodox Church, Worcester, MA, and Holy Assumption Monastery, Calistoga, CA. There are also other parish churches named "Holy Assumption" (as well as even more named "Holy Dormition," I might add).

OrthodoxEast

Dear OrthodoxEast,

I'm wondering if the use of "Assumption" in the two examples you gave is simply a question of a bad translation of "Dormition" or else a convenient one?

Alex

Dear Alex,

I'm not sure. Sometimes the terms seem to be used almost interchangeably. At any rate, "Lex orandi, lex credendi est." I believe, as an Eastern Orthodox Catholic Christian (not in communion with Rome), in the bodily Assumption of the Theotokos. The liturgical texts of the feast convince me that it could not be otherwise, but I don't need to have the Holy Virgin's Assumption "dogmatized" either.

OrthodoxEast

Dear OrthodoxEast,

As one Orthodox Christian to another -

AMEN Brother! Glory, Alleluia (3 X)

Alex

It's my understanding that the use of "Assumption" by Orthodox in the USA is more often found in the Greek Archdiocese. I was Chrismated at Assumption Greek Orthodox parish (GOA) in Scottsdale, Arizona.

I would agree with Alex that the vast majority of Orthodox accept that the Holy Theotokos was raised by her Son after her death but there are a few that do not. (Kind of a knee jerk reaction against Rome's dogmatizing of it.) It is true that dogmas generally deal with the Godhead and not creatures. However, the undivided Church felt it could rule on issues related to the Theotokos (her title as Theotokos and her ever-virginity, for example.)

David Ignatius DTBrown@aol.com

There are, indeed, churches names after the Assumption in the GO Church, as well as for the Dormition(KOIMISIS). Unfortunately, in some of the liberal circles of Greek Orthodoxy, mainly here in the United States, which, like the RC church in the U.S., have been espousing modernism and Protestantism, there has been a 'playing down' and even downright rejecting of the ancient Eastern Tradition of the Assumption of the Blessed Mother of God. Bishop Kallistos Ware puts it best in his book, 'The Orthodox Church': he basically says that the 'Assumption' whose roots of belief actually started in the East, and was later adopted in the West, is now being rejected in the East simply because the Roman Catholics dogmatized it! In other words, and I say this in utmost sorrow, the polemicists know that it is something that will unite the hearts of the East and the West, so they seek to destroy it. Since it is in what we call Holy Tradition, and has not been dogmatized, they can try to do this. HOWEVER, in Greece, in holy monasticism and in traditional belief, to reject this is considered nothing short of HERESY. I don't believe that they will get away with it.

Yours in Christ our Lord,
Alice

Dear Dave,

First of all, kudos to you and your website - a great spiritual masterpiece and very helpful!

Yes, you raise a singularly important issue that I have overlooked with respect to how the Ecumenical Councils have defined the Church's faith in Christ and about Christ from the standpoint of the Mother of God.

It is only by saying "Theotokos" that true Orthodoxy about the Person of Christ was affirmed over and against Nestorianism.

And it was by attacking the role of the Mother of God by calling her "Christotokos" as Nestorius did that this controversy came about.

At no time, it is interesting to note, did a title about the Person of Christ Himself surface - but only about His Mother!

As well, the title "Ever-Virgin Mary" and all the honours and privileges that go with it had to do with the Person of Christ once again and with an affirmation of His Divinity.

Just as He rose from the dead and moved through the sealed tomb without destroying those seals, as only Almighty God could have done, so too He Whose only Father was God was born of the Virgin Mary without affecting the seals of her sacred Virginity, before, during and after His birth.

The Church also affirms its joyful celebration of our Mother Mary and her holiness and universal intercession through the various feasts and festivals, the celebrations of her miraculous icons and appearances!

I would venture to say as well that the Immaculate Conception would never have been an issue for the seven Ecumenical Councils since the idea of the Augustinian notion of "stain of Original Sin" would have been outside the perimeters of the Fathers' thinking.

Her total holiness as the Ever-Immaculate and Most Immaculate Virgin Mother of God and her being taken body and soul to heaven were already ancient "givens" to the Fathers of the later Councils.

It is interesting to note that the Iconoclastic Council called to condemn St John Damascus and those who honoured icons actually pronounced an anathema against those who did not recognize the Virgin Mary as the Mother of God and did not invoke her as our intercessor in heaven, along with the other Saints!

In addition, the bodily Assumption of Mary in the Eastern church would not have been an issue since other Saints were known to have been so taken up to heaven, the Prophet Elias, Moses (Michael and satan fighting over his body, an oral OT tradition) and St John the Theologian who, according to tradition, was placed in his tomb ALIVE and when his followers came to open the tomb some days later - it was later.

This was interpreted then in accordance with the view that he would not taste death (something John, in his Gospel denied our Lord implied, but that didn't prevent his followers from believing it anyway).

No bodily relics of John the Theologian were ever found.

On his feast, near his Tomb in Ephesus, a gentle breeze is noted to develop, carrying sprinkles of what looks like reflective sand particles in the air.

The Eastern Church liturgically greatly venerates John the Theologian, or as the Syriac Church calles him, the "Son of Mary." And his feast is another "Dormition" or even a "Translation" of him, body and soul, to heaven.

That doesn't need to be dogmatized either but we may joyfully proclaim it during the liturgy!

St Nicholas the Wonderworker too, it is suggested in his liturgical services, especially his Akathist, was sanctified while in the womb of his mother . . .

Alex

Dear Alice,

Forgive me but I simply must say . . .

God bless you, Alice, Great Servant of God and the Most Holy Theotokos!

May the Theotokos intercede for you always! May God richly bless you!

Accept my reverence and spiritual bow!

Most Holy Mother of God save us!!

Alex

Dear Alex,

You say:

"With respect to the Feast of the Dormition (we never call it "Assumption" as this term is really foreign to Eastern Patristic thought)..."

Somebody forgot to inform Denver's "Cathedral of the Assumption" that they are out of accord with Holy Tradition if the East never calls it "Assumption":

http://www.assumptioncathedral.org/

Whether the East calls it the "assumption" or not (it's only semantics anyway), this is a beautiful website. I recommend it to all.

in Christ,
Marshall

PS: Maybe the Denver diocese made an assumption that assumption was okay to say.

Dear Brethren,

Under "co-redemptrix" I think that I do a fair job of explaining how the various Orthodox opinions regarding the Dormition/Assumption are held simultaneously within the Church. The operative word is "opinion." The East doesn't claim to "know" much concerning the end of the Theotokos' life.

Regarding my friends and relatives up in Worcester, Massachusetts, it's kind of humorous.

They became Americans, wealthy, and built a new Church to glorify God. They wanted "to fit in," and since the (RC) Assumption College was across Salisbury Street, they put up the new sign and called it "Assumption of St. Mary." Of course the old building had a beautiful glass piece over the main doors and this was reinstalled over the doors of the new building. The sign in glass reads "Fjetja e Hylindjeses" (Dormition of the Theotokos).

Funny how that is.

In Christ,
Andrew

PS: Assumption of the Holy Virgin Orthodox Church (OCA) in Philadelphia. I wonder what it says in Slavonic over their doors.

Dear Marshall,

Well, I don't think it is semantics, but a matter of a) proper understanding of one's Eastern Church traditions and b) the insightful point Reader Andrew raised above.

The emphasis that the Eastern Church gives to the Feast of August 15th (which on your calendar falls on August 28th ) is to the "Falling Asleep" of the Mother of God or the "Dormition."

Even moreso than the assuming of her, body and soul, to heaven, this emphasis is a celebration of Christ's Resurrection in OUR lives as it has first occurred in "our nature's solitary boast," the Mother of God.

Christ not only overcame death in Himself, but in her who represents all of us. While she died, her death was a "Falling Asleep in Christ" which suggests death was truly destroyed by the Redemption wrought by Christ.

From the Eastern standpoint, her Dormition is much more important than her Assumption, although they are both aspects of the same truth being celebrated.

I strongly suspect that the Greek Churches that use "Assumption" do so for the reason Reader Andrew gave - a way of 'fitting in' with the Western church community of North America.

Other examples of such self-imposed religious assimilation include contexts in which the three Bar Orthodox Cross is shunned for the one bar Cross - people don't want to stick out etc.

And that is a shame . . .

Alex

Gotta tell ya, Andrew and Alex, that the "old" St. Mary's Assumption Albanian Orthodox Church on Wellington Street in Worcester had the same name, and it was no where near Assumption College on Salisbury Street.

I attended Divine Services at both the old and new Assumption of the Virgin Mary Albanian Orthodox Church in Worcester from time to time--I was born in Worcester, and my brother still lives there. St. Mary's Assumption Church has a welcoming, generous, vibrant, hospitable congregation and has had a wonderful succession of good priests.

In fact, as an aside, Father Spero Page, the pastor emeritus of St. Mary's Assumption, kindly offered to officiate at the Orthodox committal rites for my mother at the Notre Dame Cemetery Chapel-Mausoleum in Worcester, where both my parents are entombed, when our own priest could not travel from New Hampshire after the Parastas there due to another funeral immediately following my mother's on the same day. Since my mother had attended Saturday evening Vespers served by Fr. Spero at St. Mary's Assumption a few times when visiting my brother in Worcester, this was more than a wonderful coincidence--Fr. Spero was no stranger to us, and his eulogy at the cemetery was very personal and moving to all.

OrthodoxEast

Dear OrthodoxEast,

Certainly there is nothing wrong with "Assumption" - but it really isn't an "on the money" translation of "Dormition" or "Koimesis."

It is no reflection on the people or priests of the parish at all!

Our Ukie Church in Mississauga is also of the "Dormition" but it is just called "St Mary's" so that everyone will understand.

If I sounded judgemental, I didn't mean to be and I apologise!

Alex