Assumption of the Virgin Mary

On 15 August, Christians celebrate the Feast of the Assumption of Mary into Heaven. In Eastern traditions, the actual feast day is preceded by a fast. It is assumed that the Christian feast was set on 15 August in the 5th century to transform a pagan day of remembrance into a Christian one, on which the Romans celebrated their victories in the Roman civil war for three days from 29 BC under the name feriae Augustae.

The New Testament writings do not mention the Assumption of the Mother of God into heaven. However, a passage in the Book of Revelation is sometimes seen as a reference to such a tradition, where a woman appears in the sky ‘clothed with the sun’ and wearing a crown of twelve stars on her head’. She gave birth to a son who ‘will rule over all nations with an iron scepter.’ Given this uncertain testimony, the Byzantine Orthodox liturgy also refers to apocryphal writings such as the Transitus Mariae, in which it is reported how Mary dies and is laid in the tomb, while her resurrected son takes her soul with him to heaven before it is established on the third day that her ‘blameless and honorable body had also been brought to paradise’. The scene of the ‘Dormition’ (koimēsis) of the Mother of God is a popular motif in Eastern iconography. In the Roman rite, the day is particularly emphasized by the fact that Pope Pius XII († 1958) formulated the doctrine of Mary's bodily assumption into heaven in 1950.

The consecration of herbs that often accompany the feast in Catholic parishes also seems to be based on apocryphal traditions, according to which fragrant herbs were found in Mary's tomb when it was opened. In the Armenian and Byzantine Orthodox churches, however, it is not herbs that are blessed, but grapes. The church year in the Orthodox churches of the Byzantine tradition ends on 1 September with the post-celebration of the feast.