Eid date:

The Feast of the Dormition of Our Lady is the last major feast in the liturgical year that ends on August 31, and is inaugurated by the Nativity of the Virgin on September 8. This feast, like all other Marian feasts (except the Annunciation), is based on information that the Church has derived from tradition. This holiday was established in the late sixth or early seventh century (between 610 and 649) on the occasion of the church that was dedicated in Gethsemane, where Mary and her parents were buried, as stated in tradition. Then it spread throughout the Byzantine Empire. He moved to the West during the reign of Pope Theodore I (647-649).

Famous sermons bearing witness to this feast, delivered in the eighth century, were delivered by Saint Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople (died 733), Saint Andrew of Crete (died in 740), and Saint John of Damascus (died in 753), (we have selected a passage from one of them in a previous passage of this Bulletin), and other famous preachers of the seventh century. Several names have been used for this feast, including “the Feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God,” “the Assumption,” or “the Ascension” of the Virgin.

The Gospel did not mention anything about the sleep of the Mother of God, nor did it shed light on the details of her life either. But what St. John of Damascus mentioned in the early eighth century in his famous sermon about the Dormition of Our Lady is sufficient to confirm the oral heritage that has spread in the Church since the first centuries and has been transmitted to us in a manuscript entitled “The Book of John the Theologian on the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos.” Copies of this manuscript have been found in Greek, Syriac, and Arabic, all dating back to the early fourth century AD. As for Saint Damascus, who was famous for his Marian writings, he assured us that Christ himself came to the bed of his mother surrounded by the apostles who were brought by the Spirit from the ends of the earth.

Oral tradition also says that after Pentecost, the apostles began to meet together regularly, and if they reclined for lunch after prayer, they would leave an empty place between them and place a piece of the bread they ate on the pillow, calling it the Lord’s portion. If they got up after lunch and prayed and gave thanks, they would take that piece and raise it, saying, “Glory to you, our God. Glory to you. Glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” And they would repeat, “Christ has risen” for a period ranging between Easter and the Ascension. After the ascension, they were chanting, “Great is the name of the Holy Trinity, O Lord Christ, help us,” and so on until they separated to preach.

In order for this tradition to remain alive, this is what each of the apostles did wherever he was, until they gathered, coming in the clouds, to attend the death of the Lady, which was in reality nothing but a transition. On the third day of her burial, when the apostles were gathered as usual, and while they were raising the Lord’s portion, saying, “A wondrous name...” they stopped and were astonished! What an astonishing wonder, the sky opened and the Virgin appeared with her pure body, wrapped in a cloud of light, and angels appeared, clothed in light, surrounding her in the air, and she said, “Peace be to you, rejoice with me for days...” The apostles were astonished and shouted, saying instead of “Lord Jesus Christ, help us,” “Mother.” God Almighty is our eyes.” Then they went to the grave, and since they did not find her body, they were certain of the truth of her resurrection from the dead, alive in her body like her son, going to the heavens. 

Some may imagine that this account is fictional, far from the truth and objectivity, but whoever reads the Bible with faith and admires its verses will not be surprised by a tradition like this. Rather, it is a logical continuation of the most holy life and the natural culmination of a pure life like the life of Mary, whom the Lord took as a body from her body. Isn’t he the one who said, “He who believes in me, even if he dies, will he live?” How much more so if he embodied faith in her person and contained in her womb the Lord and Creator of the world?

John of Damascus exclaims in the language of faith in his famous sermon on the Dormition of Mary: “Today the ladder on which the Most High descended will pass from earth to heaven” (and here he refers to Jacob’s ladder in his dream as mentioned in (Genesis 28:10-19). This tomb is holier than The Holy of Holies contains not shadows and symbols, but rather the truth itself...Raise your eyes, O people of God, and see the tabernacle of the God of Sabaoth in Gethsemane, and the apostles came to it and buried the body, the principle of life, which contained the Son of God...”

Icon of Our Lady's Dormition or Assumption:

“O Apostles, gather from all over the world to here in the village of Gethsemane, and lay my body to rest, and you will receive my spirit, O my Son and my God.” This hymn is an image of the outlines that the icon painters followed to paint the icon of the Dormition. There is an icon in the Monastery of Saint Catherine in the Sinai Desert (25cm We all know that the icons of this monastery have a unique value, as they were not affected by the wave of iconoclasm that prevailed in the eighth century. The scene is the same in all icons that represent the meaning of transition: the Virgin Mary lying on her deathbed, her body folded horizontally as if it was almost tipping over due to its unstable balance. This is explained by the lack of depth in icon art. Everything is drawn superficially, as there is no third dimension as in ordinary paintings. Maryam's body is bent and bent towards the viewer with much tenderness. As for Christ, he is standing in the middle of the icon. His body is most often surrounded by a dazzling aura of eternal light. He holds Mary in his hands, swaddled in wraps like a small child, as if she were being born in heaven at the hands of her son and her Master. Whoever looks at the icon from afar will see the two lines that make up Mary and Jesus as if they were the lines of the Lord’s cross: the cross is always upright in the life of the church. As for the apostles, they surround Mary’s body in a semicircle. We clearly see four of them: Peter bending over Mary’s head with signs of sadness and contemplation visible on his face, Paul leaning at her feet in astonishment, John the beloved disciple kissing her coffin with deep sadness, and Andrew standing behind Peter. There are several bishops in the painting who are distinguished by their church dress. As for the angels, they joyfully participate in this sad scene and add signs of heaven to it.

As for Russia in the Middle Ages, when the city of Kiev was its capital, it considered the Dormition of Our Lady a national holiday and placed itself under the intercession of the Virgin Mary and her protection against foreign invasions. Therefore, Russian art was famous for performing paintings of the Dormition of the Virgin, and the city of Novgorod was also distinguished by its painters, so the composition was a shining light.

Meaning of Eid:

Father Gehle explains to us in his book on the liturgical year cycle that the origin of this holiday is mysterious in the Christian world. In Palestine, the holiday was held on August 15 before the sixth century. In the seventh century, the Byzantine Emperor Maurice fixed the date of August 15 definitively. It is one of the most important holidays of the Church, and the Church prepares the believers for it with a fast that lasts fourteen days during which we pray the law of Paraclesia, that is, supplicating to the Virgin daily. It is the most important of our Lady’s holidays. The readings that are recited in it are the same as those recited on the Nativity of Our Lady and certainly do not mention the Dormition of Our Lady. As for the spiritual meaning of the holiday, it is evident in the hymns of the Vespers and Matins prayers, but in reality there are several meanings emanating from the prayers related to the Dormition:

The first meaning: The feast is not only a celebration of the birth of Mary in heaven, as the icon indicates, but rather the feast of Mary’s bodily transition to heaven, and the texts that indicate this are many in our rituals: “The Mother of God is not neglectful in intercessions... neither grave nor death has overtaken her…” Because you have moved. To life, since you are the mother of life...” Therefore, Mary’s completely pure body did not know the corruption and disintegration resulting from death, but rather was transported by the angels to heaven.

The Church did not impose this teaching on the believers as a doctrine, but the living conscience of the Church throughout the generations considers the denial of Our Lady’s transition to heaven as definite blasphemy. Mary is that creature alone in purity and majestic purity in the secret of her silence, transcendent in the depth of her suffering, who transcended the limits of nature and flew as close as a human being can reach, so she rose above the angels and became divinized by her humility. Therefore, her son glorified her with her body and transferred it to him. Thus, the Church celebrates through Mary the first resurrection before the general resurrection.

The second meaning: “Death has become a pledge of life...” The feast is the feast of all human nature because through Mary, the stinking earthly mountain reached its highest goal and was allowed to hope... The Dormition of the Virgin represents for us the glory that we can attain if grace bears fruit in us through the action of the Holy Spirit. Whatever the significance of the historical event, what is important for us is that the Church focuses in its readings on the spiritual meaning of the event, and the Apostle Paul summarized it for us in his first letter to the Corinthians: “Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, so we will bear the image of the heavenly... for we too will be transformed” (1 Corinthians 15:49, 52). . There is no doubt that Mary has a special status and special privileges, but we have her as an intercessor, as she did not neglect us during her dormancy, paving the way for us to heaven, keeping in mind the possibilities of nature hidden within its folds, waiting for the dew of the Holy Spirit to open and the life of holiness to flow.

Why move? To Saint John of Damascus:

In fact, this befitting dwelling place of God, the unbroken spring from which flows water that forgives sins, the unplowed earth bearing heavenly bread, the vine that yields the wine of immortality without being watered, and the evergreen olive tree of the Father’s mercy bearing splendid fruits, should not have suffered the arrest of the seas of God. The land is hers. Rather, just as the pure, holy body, through which the divine Word united Him with His hypostasis, rose from the grave on the third day, she too had to be taken from the grave and the mother should be joined to her son. And just as he descended to her, so she herself, the object of his love, was to be transferred to “the greatest and most perfect abode,” to heaven itself.

She should have come to live in the tabernacles of her Son, which provided a refuge for the divine word in her womb. Just as the Lord said that He would be in His Father’s own dwelling (necessarily), so the mother was to dwell in her son’s court, “in the house of the Lord and in the courts of the house of our God” (Psalm 134:1, 135:2). For if here is the abode of all who rejoice” (Psalm 78:7), where then will the cause of joy dwell?

She had to preserve her body incorruptible, and even after her death, she preserved her complete virginity in childbirth.

She should have resided in the heavenly tents that carried a child in her creator’s womb.

She was to come to dwell in the heavenly marriage chamber, the bride chosen by the Father for Himself. She should have seen her son sitting next to the Father, whom she had seen on the cross, accepting in her heart the sword of pain that left her at her birth.

The Mother of God was to receive the bounties of her Son and to be honored by all creation as the Mother of God and His servant. Inheritance always passes from parents to children; But here, to quote the words of one of the wise men, the springs of the sacred river rise again to their origin, because the Son has submitted to his mother the entire creation.

Adapted from: A message from the Parish of Aleppo and the Monastery of the Fountain of Life.. Dibbin - Jordan