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August 15 is the feast of the Assumption of Mary in the West! Does anyone know why we celebrate this on the 15 of August? Also, when do Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox celebrate the Dormition?
God bless and may the Father give you eyes of faith,
Michael

Michael,

Same day East & West, different name, slightly different emphasis. As to why it's the 15th, I haven't the slightest.

Sharon

Sharon Mech, SFO
Cantor & sinner
sharon@cmhc.com

Dear Michael,

Eastern Catholics and Orthodox who follow the Gregorian Calendar also celebrate the feast of the Dormition of Our Lady on August 15th.

Those of us, like Edward Yong, Vasili the Old Believer and myself, who follow the Julian Calendar, celebrate it on August 28th.

The Feast is the same in East and West, but it is called differently and the offices for the feast emphasize different aspects of this mystery.

The central focus of the Eastern Church's devotion is the Icon of the Dormition itself.

This is the Icon portraying the Most Holy Mother of God in gentle repose on a bier. She died, as do other human beings, but, owing to Her great holiness and role as the Mother of the Word Incarnate, Her death is like a sweet sleep, thus the word, "Dormition."

Over Her stands Her Son in a kind of reverse of the traditional Icons of the Theotokos where She is holding the Child Jesus.

Here Christ holds the soul of His Mother, protecting Her, taking Her to Himself.

According to Tradition and the deuterocanonical writings, the Mother of God prayed to Her Son to ask Him to take Her immediately to Himself and to protect Her against the demons of the sky etc. This He did and this is depicted on the Icon.

Surrounding the bier are the Apostles who, it is said, were brought from their mission outposts to attend the funeral of the Mother of God by Angels, including St Thomas, who was brought from India this way.

St Thomas was brought late and when they opened the Tomb of the Mother of God, Her body was not there, and Thomas proclaimed that Her Son took His Mother, body and soul, to Heaven. The early Lutherans, interestingly enough, always affirmed this truth as well.

There is also often the scene of a man at the side of the bier having his hands cut off by an angel.

This was a fellow who was filled with rage at the Mother of Jesus (the devil made him do it) and he actually attacked the bier. His hands were cut off and were left attached to the bier. This converted him.

The Mother of God is also shown being seated in Heaven above it all, interceding for humankind.

This is a Sophia Icon and is a richly meaningful Icon for spiritual and theological reflection and meditation.

The West emphasizes the Assumption of our Lady into Heaven and tends to overlook the Dormition or death of our Lady. The dogma of the Assumption, proclaimed by the Pope in this century, left the matter of whether our Lady even died an open question - this is connected to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.

For the East, there is no question, the Mother of God did indeed repose in Her Lord and Son.

There are several miraculous Icons of the Dormition celebrated, the most famous one being that of the Kyivan Caves Lavra which is suspended on ropes above the Royal Doors of the iconostasis and is lowered for the veneration of the faithful.

Tradition also has it that the Mother of God reposed on the 13th day of August and was taken to Heaven on the 15th day. This is emphasized in the West moreso than in the East. For years, Portugal and other Latin countries celebrated the "repose of the Mother of God" on the thirteenth of EVERY month. Some Coptic calendars also list the 13th of August as the day on which our Lady reposed.

God bless,

Alex

[This message has been edited by Orthodox Catholic (edited 08-14-2001).]

SLAVA ISUSU CHRISTU!
SLAVA NA VIKI BOHU!

For anyone who's interested, Holy Tradition tells us the name of the fellow touching the bier is Athonios and that he was a fanatical Jew who questioned the Virginity of the Mother of God and also questioned the Divinity of Jesus.

Some traditions also tell us that it is the Archangel Gabriel who is doing the cutting with the sword.

Some also reference the falling of the Ark of the Covenant in the OT and of the servant who touched it with un-clean hands and was struck down. In this case, the Ark was the Mother of God.

the ikon writer
Mark

Alex,
my questions is: why would St. Thomas need to open the tomb of St. Mary since according to wester belief Her body and soul was assumed together into heaven? What I understand as an Orthodox Catholic is that St. Mary actually experienced death in the real sense and that Her body followed sometime after Her Dormition. There had to be a funeral, annointing, and burial. This all takes time more like 3 days. As it was the Apostles didnt know that Her body was assumed until St. Thomas insisted that the tomb of Our Lady be opened.
JoeS

Dear Joe,

Very interesting questions. I wish I had the answers to them . . .

I don't know. We get this from traditions, legend, deuterocanonical sources and liturgical material.

The Apostles, it is said, were brought from afar on the wings of angels. St Philip was certainly no stranger to that experience as we know from the Acts of the Apostles.

I think there would be some lee-way in the interpretation of the events surrounding the Dormition of the Mother of God.

But you are wasting your time talking to such an ignorant person as me . . .

Happy Feast of the Dormition anyway!

Alex

I would just like to add that the Mother of God appeared to St. Thomas, and as additional proof of her Assumption, gave him her cincture. This cincture is kept to this day in a Syrian Orthodox church in India named after the Zunoro (cincture) of the Mother of God.

I believe in the Assumption. I just dont believe it happened at the same time as the Domition.
JoeS

Dear Joe,

According to tradition, and again I wasn't there , the Mother of God was taken body and soul to Heaven two or three days following Her Dormition.

Both Her death and Her Assumption into Heaven are liturgical celebrated on the same day, but that doesn't assumed, as you know, that these things happened on the same day.

I'm having a bad day today, I even got a little angry with Brendan.

See you next week.

Alex

Last night I was in an Orthodox chat room and a discussion arose where there were Orthodox as well as Roman Catholics claiming that Dormition and Assumption are two words for the same event. This confused me because I see them as two separate and distinct events though connected. I think the replies I received fit in with the discussion here so I will post them.
Alex and I seem to agree on this particular subject
Bob

---------------------------------------------

>>Can anyone clear this up for me by explaining it? I don't want to get
into a discussion about what RC's believe vs what Orthodox Catholics
believe. I just want and explaination of the Orthodox view. Are they are
are they not two different and separate events?<<

They are two different, but connected events. In case you hadn't noticed,
the Dormition feast follows many of the patterns of the Paschal celebration,
most noticeably in the "lamentations" and funeral procession at the vigil.
Many of the lines of the lamentations are reworkings of the lamentations for
Christ on Great and Holy Friday.

Many Greek Churches are dedicated to the Feast of the Dormition, but they
have the name of "Assumption" presumably under the influence of Roman
Catholic parishes. Really the difference in terms seems to indicate a
difference in emphasis (as with so many of the differences between Orthodoxy
and Roman Catholicism). The Orthodox, while upholding the sinless and
blessed life of the Theotokos understand that she was at the same time
'merely' human. The Romans however, put the emphasis on her Assumption into
heaven bodily, perhaps as a 'corroboration' of the Dogma of the Immaculate
Conception.

For the Orthodox, the Dormition is the proof of Christ's great love for his
mother, of his mother's great love for us (for though departing from the
earth, she has not abandoned us) and existential proof that we are all
called to become "Theotokos". It is a strengthening of the faithful, not
proof of the "superhumanity" of Mary. The fact that RC's refer to her most
often as "Blessed Virgin" rather than "Mother of God" or "Theotokos" is
evidence that they understand her significance very differently from the
Orthodox. In emphasizing her virginity over her motherhood, they've
separated her humanity from ours and denied or diminished the existential
truth of her motherhood not only to Christ, but to all of us, for she is the
mother of our Salvation which is Christ.

---------------------------------------------

Dear Bob,

We do indeed agree and thanks for your luminous post on this.

The Funerary aspect of the liturgical services of our Feast of the Dormition is what completely differentiates it from the Western Assumption Feast.

Although the Mother of God is portrayed at the top of the Dormition Icons as being in Heaven, the focus is still on Her lying on the bier, with Christ standing over Her, holding His Mother in His Divine Hands.

Actually, whenever you, rightly, criticize Byzantine Catholics for being lax or for their Latinizations, I too agree with you . . .

You not only have an excellent handle on Orthodoxy as a whole, but you have mastered its true spirit and spirituality.

Alex

Here is an interesting sermon from the period prior to 550 AD. It was given by no less a figure than Cyril, Patriarch of Jerusalem. If a correct translation, I believe that it is germaine to the subject in that there is NO mention at all of the Assumption of our Most Pure and Holy Theotokos.

darkwing.uoregon.edu/~sshoemak/texts/coptic/Cyril.htm

In Christ,
Andrew

Dear Reader Andrew,

Yes, but if just because I, for example, talked about God the Holy Spirit, this does not mean I don't believe in God the Father and God the Son as well.

I'm getting a very strong sense that something may be troubling you - totally unrelated to this or any other thread.

Are you on the verge of a decision in your life, perhaps?

If that is any of my business . . .

Alex

Dear Alex,

I certainly agree with the principle behind your first paragraph, but the sermon should still raise some questions.

As for your second paragraph, please send me any rumors that you may hear. I hate being in the dark.

With love in Christ,
Andrew

Dear Friends:

Nothing certain is known regarding the day, year, and manner of Our Lady's death and the mystery of, and our faith in, her bodily assumption has been derived largely from Apostolic Tradition.

Extant writings of the early Fathers show varying accounts of the event: between 3 and 15 years AFTER the Ascension of Our Lord, Jesus Christ.

There is a credible account attributed to St. John of Damascus (St. John Damascene) who wrote that, in the annals of the Church of Jerusalem, it is recorded that: ". . .St. Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, at the Council of Chalcedon (451), made known to the Emperor Marcian, who wished to possess the body of the Mother of God, that Mary died in the presence of all the Apostles, but that her tomb, when opened, upon the request of St. Thomas, was found empty; wherefrom the Apostles concluded that the body was taken up to heaven."

The origin and "fixing" of the Feast of the Assumption (Dormition), likewise, saw differing dates at the beginning. Some Churches early on(including Rome) celebrated it in January, others, especially the Eastern Churches,in August, and still others in February. In the 6th century, the Emperor Maurice set the feast for the Byzanine Empire on August the 15th.

At any rate, today the belief in the corporeal assumption of Mary is universal in the East and in the West.

AmdG