Today is the Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos. Troparion - Tone 1
In giving birth you preserved your virginity,
In falling asleep
you did not forsake the world,
O Theotokos.
You were translated to life,
O Mother of Life,
And by your prayers,
you deliver our souls from death.
Kontakion - Tone 2
Neither the tomb, nor death could hold the Theotokos,
Who is constant in prayer and our firm hope in her intercessions.
For being the Mother of Life,
She was translated to life by the One who dwelt in her virginal womb.
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For This is Meet
But now the Mother of God has her dwelling in Heaven whither she was today translated, for this is meet, Heaven being a suitable place for her. She “stands at the right of the King of all clothed in a vesture wrought with gold and arrayed with divers colors” (cf. Ps. 44:9), as the psalmic prophecy says con- cerning her. By “vesture wrought with gold” understand her divinely radiant body arrayed with divers colors of every virtue. She alone in her body, glorified by God, now enjoys the celestial realm together with her Son. For, earth and grave and death did not hold forever her life-originating and God-receiving body -the dwelling more favored than Heaven and the Heaven of heavens. If, therefore, her soul, which was an abode of God’s grace, ascended into Heaven when bereaved of things here below, a thing which is abundantly evident, how could it be that the body which not only received in itself the pre-eternal and only-begotten Son of God, the ever-flowing Wellspring of grace, but also manifested His Body by way of birth, should not have also been taken up into Heaven? Or, if while yet three years of age and not yet possessing that super- celestial in-dwelling, she seemed not to bear our flesh as she abode in the Holy of Holies, and after she became supremely perfect even as regards her body by such great marvels, how indeed could that body suffer corruption and turn to earth? How could such a thing be conceivable for anyone who thinks reasonably’? Hence, the body which gave birth is glorified together with what was born of it with God-befitting glory, and the “ark of holiness” (Ps. 131:8) is resurrected, after the prophetic ode, together with Christ Who formerly arose from the dead on the third day. The strips of linen and the burial clothes afford the apostles a demonstration of the Theotokos’ resurrection from the dead, since they remained alone in the tomb and at the apostles’ scrutiny they were found there, even as it had been with the Master. There was no necessity for her body to delay yet a little while in the earth, as was the case with her Son and God, and so it was taken up straightway from the tomb to a super-celestial realm, from whence she flashes forth most brilliant and divine illuminations and graces, irradiating earth’s region; thus she is worshipped and marvelled at and hymned by all the faithful . Willing to set up an image of all goodness and beauty and to make clearly manifest His own therein to both angels and men, God fashioned a being supremely good and beautiful, uniting in her all good, seen and unseen, which when He made the world He distributed to each thing and thereby adorned all; or rather one might say, He showed her forth as a universal mixing bowl of all divine, angelic and human things good and beautiful and the supreme beauty which embellished both worlds. By her ascension now from the tomb, she is taken from the earth and attains to Heaven and this also she surpasses, uniting those on high with those below, and encompassing all with the wondrous deed wrought in her. In this manner she was in the beginning “a little lower than the angels” (Ps. 8:6), as it is said, referring to her mortality, yet this only served to magnify her pre-eminence as regards all creatures. Thus all things today fittingly gather and commune for the festival.
~ St. Gregory Palamas, from a homily on the feast of Dormition
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All Things are Filled With Joy
She who is higher than the heavens
and more glorious than the cherubim,
she who is held in greater honor than all creation,
she who by reason of her surpassing purity
became the receiver of the everlasting essence,
today commends her most pure soul into the hands of her Son.
With her all things are filled with joy and she bestows great mercy on us!
Come, all who love to keep the feasts,
come, let us form a choir!
Come, let us crown the Church with songs, as the ark of God goes to her rest.
For today heaven opens wide
as it receives the Mother of Him Who cannot be contained.
The earth, as it yields up the source of Life, is robed in blessing and majesty.
The hosts of Angels, present with the fellowship of the Apostles,
gaze in great fear at her who bore the Author of life,
now that she is translated from life to life.
Let us all venerate and implore her:
“O Lady, forget not your ties of kinship
with those who keep in faith the feast of your all-holy Dormition!”
Sing, O people! Sing the praises of the Mother of our God;
for today she delivers her soul, full of light,
into the immaculate hands of Him Who was made incarnate of her without seed.
And she entreats Him without ceasing
to grant the earth peace and great mercy!
~ from the Litya for the feast
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For an explanation of the icon, see the page at the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese.
