Icon of the Dormition of the Theotokos

Orthodox Christians Commemorate the Dormition of the Virgin Mary

on August 28, 2014

Today, August 28, marks the Great Feast of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary according to the Julian calendar. Most of the world’s local Orthodox Churches celebrate the feast today along with Roman Catholics and some high church Protestants on August 15th.  However, the majority of the world’s Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Christians celebrate the Dormition according to the Julian calendar, which is currently 13 days behind the Revised Julian/Gregorian. Thus, for these communities, including the Russian, Ukrainian,, Georgian, and Serbian Orthodox Churches, the feast falls on August 28. Western Christians usually refer to the feast as the Assumption. While Orthodox Christians equally believe in the Mother of God’s bodily assumption into heaven, we use the term ‘Dormition’ to emphasize the reality that the Theotokos (“she who gave birth to God”) truly shared in the mortality common to all men and women, and was then assumed in glory into the heavenly Kingdom.

What exactly is the meaning of this feast? It is one of the twelve Great Feasts of the Church, ranked among holy days such as the Lord’s Resurrection, Nativity, and Pentecost. Therefore, it is of immense importance in the liturgical and communal life of the Body of Christ. Such was the Virgin Mary’s importance to her Son that upon the Cross, His only instructions to his attendant apostle, St. John the Beloved, were for St. John to care lovingly for her as if she were his own mother. Church Tradition holds that the Mother of God lived into old age, dying peacefully as a beloved pillar of the early Church community. Sharing in the mystery of death with her Son, she shared also with Him the transfiguring glory of resurrection, as the feast celebrates her passage unto eternal life with Christ, and her glorification and sitting at His right hand.

What we know of the Virgin Mary’s life after her Son’s Ascension into heaven is provided not by Scripture, but the universal consensus of early Church Tradition, of which Scripture is one part. So beloved was she by the earliest Christians that, as word spread of her impending death, all the apostles hurried from throughout the Near East to be at her bedside. The central icon of the feast vividly depicts this reality: the icon revolves around none other than Christ Himself, who has come down from His heavenly throne to receive His mother in His arms. He is depicted holding His mother in miniature, swaddled in white cloth: this represents her immaculate, uncorrupted soul, which He holds in His hands as He reunites her to Himself.  The Virgin Mary lays serene on her bed, having already reposed, with the apostles and angels gathered lovingly around her. To the right, St. Peter, as the protos (first in honor) among the apostles, censes her body reverently, while to the left, the great evangelist St. Paul prostrates himself in reverence before her.

This icon is unique in the Church in that it depicts the apostles reverencing and humbling themselves before a woman. By depicting her preeminent role as a woman so important that the male apostles of the Church bow before her, the Church is thus illustrating, literally and figuratively, that the Virgin Mary is first among the Saints. She is honored as the “Mother of our Life” before the pillars of the Church, Sts Peter and Paul, and the other apostles who always honored her. As the most pure and sinless woman who ever lived, deemed worthy by God the Father to bear His eternal Son, the Virgin Mary is the very archetype and personification of that to which the Christian life calls us. In terms of her authority, she is the first of the Saints, the first in the heavenly Kingdom, and yet she is first in honor because of her humble submission to God. Orthodox monastics traditionally see her as the first nun, in that she was throughout her life a devout ascetic who, from her childhood, revered and loved God above all else.

So on this great feast, Christians around the world remember and honor the departure unto eternal life of Christ’s own mother, who became, out of her immense love for all of humanity, our mother. The Church lauds her in special hymns for the Feast today as the “Steadfast Protectress of Christians, constant advocate before the Creator”, reminding us that we can always turn to her, for Christ our God always listens to her. His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America reflects on the Dormition’s significance for families in his 2014 encyclical for the feast here, while His Beatitude Metropolitan Jonah, former primate of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), reflects on the feast’s theme of resurrection here in his 2011 encyclical.

The Dormition marks not only the Mother of God’s departure from this earthly life — a thing of somberness — but, joyfully, her radiant entry into eternal life. We can only imagine Mary’s rejoicing at entering at last into that life spent in unending union with her beloved Son. Her day of earthly death is thus her birthday in heaven. In remembering the Virgin Mary’s death and resurrection, we are reminded of our own inevitable death, and our somberness mixes with joy at the hope of our own resurrection. In Christ, our fear of death becomes, though a natural part of our mortality, a temporary obstacle. The veil of death ultimately transfigures us into eternal members of Christ’s Body, united with the Mother of God, the choirs of angels and Saints in praising God unto the ages of ages. Thus, while to some this feast may seem sad, it is in fact a feast of great rejoicing and hope, for in recalling the death of the holy woman whose “yes” to God made possible our own redemption and resurrection, we look with hope to our own resurrection and eternal life with Christ.

  1. Comment by Scott on August 29, 2014 at 4:10 pm

    Beautiful article — and very helpful to those of us who are [for now] Protestants in understanding the position of Mary in the early church tradition.

  2. Comment by Ryan Hunter on September 1, 2014 at 11:52 am

    Hi Scott,
    Thanks very much! for your kind words Your use of the words “[for now]” suggest to me that you might be open to converting down the line? 🙂 Enjoy reading Church history, but above all, please visit your nearest Orthodox church!
    Happy Labor Day and Church New Year,
    -Ryan Hunter

  3. Comment by MarcoPolo on August 29, 2014 at 5:58 pm

    Indeed, an articulate illustration of Jesus’ Mother, and helpful for those of us whom, are not Catholic.
    BTW, how many brothers did Jesus have?

  4. Comment by Ryan Hunter on September 1, 2014 at 11:50 am

    Hi “MarcoPolo”,
    According to the universal consensus of early Church Tradition, upheld in the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and non-Chalcedonian Churches, Jesus did not have any earthly brothers or sisters.
    Even the early Protestant divines, Luther and Calvin preeminent among them, affirm the perpetual virginity of the Virgin Mary and that Christ was her only child. St. Joseph, the Virgin’s elderly guardian and husband, was married previously and so he would have had children.

    The term “brother” and “sister” in the Bible when used next to Christ refers to either cousins, friends, or other close companions and associates of the Lord.
    In Christ,
    -Ryan Hunter

  5. Comment by MarcoPolo on September 1, 2014 at 12:24 pm

    Thank you, Ryan.
    I knew I could count on you for clarification.

  6. Comment by Ryan Hunter on September 2, 2014 at 11:25 am

    You’re welcome, “Marco”!

The work of IRD is made possible by your generous contributions.

Receive expert analysis in your inbox.