The Dormition is the falling-asleep of the Virgin Mary. That’s what the word means, from the Greek koimesis, to sleep. On August 15th each year, we celebrate her death, her burial, and her being taken up into heaven by Christ.
She died. That matters. The Theotokos didn’t vanish or get whisked away before death could touch her. She experienced what we all experience. But her death was different because her body didn’t see corruption. After the apostles gathered around her deathbed and buried her (tradition says in Gethsemane), Christ took her up, body and soul, into the heavenly kingdom.
What the Church Teaches
According to the tradition preserved in our liturgical texts and the writings of saints like John of Damascus and Andrew of Crete, the apostles were miraculously gathered to her bedside when the time came. They prayed over her. She fell asleep peacefully. Three days later, when Thomas arrived late (as he often did), they opened the tomb to let him venerate her body. It wasn’t there. What they found were grave clothes and an overwhelming fragrance of flowers.
This isn’t speculation or pious legend we can take or leave. It’s woven into the fabric of how the Church prays. The hymns of the feast proclaim it. The icons show it, Christ holding her soul like a swaddled infant while the apostles surround her body.
You might’ve heard Catholics talk about the Assumption. Same event, different emphasis. The Catholic dogma (defined in 1950) focuses on Mary being assumed into heaven but doesn’t specify whether she died first. We’re more direct. She died. Death is real, and she didn’t bypass it. But death couldn’t hold her because she bore Life itself in her womb. Her dormition becomes our hope, what happened to her will happen to all of us who are in Christ.
The Fast and the Paraklesis
We don’t just show up on August 15th unprepared. The Church gives us two weeks to get ready. From August 1st through the 14th, we keep the Dormition Fast. It’s similar to Lent but shorter. No meat, no dairy, no oil on most days (though fish is allowed on a couple of feast days that fall during it).
During these two weeks, many parishes serve the Paraklesis, a service of supplication to the Theotokos. We’re asking for her prayers. If you work swing shifts at one of the plants around Beaumont, you know what it’s like to need someone praying for you when things get hard. The Paraklesis is that on a spiritual level. We come before the Mother of God and ask her to intercede for us with her Son.
The service is beautiful. Quieter than Liturgy, more intimate. There’s a refrain that repeats: “Most Holy Theotokos, save us.” Not that she saves us in the way Christ does, but that she prays for us. She’s alive. She hears us. And because she’s closer to God than any other human being, her prayers carry weight.
Why This Feast Matters
The Dormition tells us something crucial about what we believe happens after death. Mary isn’t unconscious somewhere waiting for a future resurrection. She’s alive and active right now in the heavenly kingdom. The Church isn’t divided into the living and the dead, it’s one communion spanning heaven and earth.
And her body matters. We don’t believe in some gnostic escape from physicality. The body isn’t a prison the soul sheds at death. Mary was taken up body and soul because the whole person, body included, is destined for eternal life. What happened to her is the firstfruits of what Christ promises all of us.
When you come to Liturgy on August 15th, you’ll hear the troparion: “In giving birth you preserved your virginity, and in falling asleep you did not forsake the world, O Theotokos.” She didn’t leave us. From her place in the heavenly chamber, she’s still interceding, still mothering the Church. The Dormition isn’t an ending. It’s her entrance into the fullness of the life Christ won for all of us.
If you’ve never been to the feast, come. The service is long but worth it. And if your parish serves Paraklesis during the first two weeks of August, try to make it to at least one. You’ll get a feel for how the Church prepares for this feast, and you’ll hear us asking the Theotokos for something we all need: her prayers.
