Feast of Assumption

ASSUMPTION, FEAST OF, the feast of the Assumption of the blessed Virgin Mary (Lat. assumptio, dormitio depositio, pausatio B.V.M. (Gr. /coiµrlats or aviXrlOs Trls Oeor6Kov), cele brated by the Christian Church on Aug. 15, commemorating her death and miraculous ascent into heaven. The belief in the latter has its origin in apocryphal sources, such as the els TO KoL spoiv 77]S vnrepa7las roivrls ascribed to the Apostle John, and the De transitu Mariae, assigned to Melito, bishop of Sardis, but actually written about A.D. 400. They were accepted as authentic by Gregory of Tours (d. 593 or 594) , who in his De gloria martyrum (1.4) gives the following account of the miracle : As all the Apostles were watching round the dying Mary, Jesus appeared with His angels and committed the soul of His Mother to the Archangel Michael. Next day, as they were carrying the body to the grave, Christ again appeared and carried it with Him in a cloud to heaven, where it was reunited with the soul. According to St. John of Damascus, the patriarchs and Adam and Eve also appear at the deathbed; a Jew who touches the body loses both his hands, which are restored to him by the Apostles; and the body lies three days in the grave without corruption before it is taken up into heaven.

The festival is first mentioned by St. Andrew of Crete (b.

c. 65o), and is said to have been fixed on Aug. 15 by the emperor Maurice (d. 602) . From the East it was borrowed by Rome, where there is evidence of its existence so early as the 7th cen tury. The belief in the bodily assumption of the Virgin has never been defined as a dogma and remains a "pious opinion" which the faithful are not bound to accept, though its denial would involve "insolent temerity" as being contrary to the common agreement of the Church. By the reformed Churches, including the Church of England, the festival is not observed, having been rejected at the Reformation as being neither primitive nor founded upon any "certain warrant of Holy Scripture."