Today we celebrate an important feast in the life of the Church; the feast of the Dormition of Our All-Holy Theotokos (Mother of God) and Ever-Virgin Mary. We know that this feast is important because it is proceeded by a period of fasting.
Why then is this feast so important? For those of you who come from an Italian background, it will be easy for you to see the relationship between the word dormition and the Italian verb dormire – to fall asleep. This is then what we are celebrating in this great feast the passing of the Holy Theotokos from this life and her resurrection to the next.
Unlike the Roman Catholic position, the ancient Tradition of the Church was that the All-Holy Theotokos died a physical death as opposed to being assumed alive into Heaven. As the story goes, the Apostles were preaching in many different places prior to the time of her death. However, news got to them of her imminent death, so they all returned to be with her in Jerusalem. However, the Apostle Thomas was delayed. Thus, all the Apostles were present except Saint Thomas at her death.
Tradition then tells us that the Apostles saw our Lord and Saviour escort her Soul to Paradise at the exact moment of death. If you look at the Icon of the Dormition below you can see that Christ holds a small baby which represents the soul of the All-Holy Theotokos being taken to Heaven by her Son whilst the Apostles gather around her pure body. After her death, she was then processed through the streets of Jerusalem to be buried near the Garden of Gethsemane.
When the Apostle Thomas finally arrived, three days after her passing, he asked to see her one last time – in much the same way some families have a final viewing of a loved one prior to burial. To the surprise of the Apostles, her body was gone. At this moment, an Angel of the Lord appeared -probably Saint Gabriel- and informed the Apostles that her body had been assumed into Heaven.
The Theotokos occupies a vital position in the prayer life of the Orthodox Church, for she was given as Mother to the Apostle John on behalf of us all, by Christ from the Precious and Life-Giving Cross (John 19: 25-27). This means that she is an intercessor on behalf of us before her beloved Son, our Lord and Saviour! This means that we as Christians can ask her to intercede on behalf of us to her Son. History is full of many stories of how the All-Holy Theotokos has assisted many of the Saints.
One such miracle happened to a Saint that is particularly dear to me – Saint Herman of Alaska. Saint Herman of Alaska was a missionary monk who came from the famous Varlaam Monastery in Russia. After leaving Varlaam Monestry, Saint Hermon lived out his life on Spruce Island in Alaska, where he ministered to the spiritual and physical needs of the Aluit people living there. He was a great advocate for the Aluit at a time when fur traders sought to exploit their knowledge of Alaska and expert hunting skills for their own gain.
Indeed, his spiritual labours bore much fruit in that many of the Aluit in Alaska are to this day devoted to the Saint and have remained Orthodox. Moreover, they have a Saint so their own who was martyred at the hands of the Spanish Jesuits – Saint Peter the Aluit.
Saint Herman always had a great devotion to the All-Holy Theotokos and would always pray to her, asking for her to intercede for him or others. However, when he was a young man at the Saint Sergius Hermitage (his first Monastry), he developed an abscess on the right side underneath his chin. The swelling kept growing, making it difficult to swallow, and if it did not stop, Saint Herman would most certainly die a painful death.
Saint Herman did not give up – in the midst of his ordeal, he fell down in tears and prayed before the Icon of the All-Holy Theotokos, asking to be healed. He even wiped the icon with a wet towel and placed it over the abscess, and continued to pray. Eventually, he tired and fell asleep as he had been praying all night.
When he awoke, to his great joy, he found that he had been miracoulsy healed. This was believed to be impossible by the physicians as they acknowledged that for the abscess to heal, it would have needed to break-through by itself or be lanced and drained by a physician. All that was left on the Saint’s neck was a tiny mark where the abscess had been. Saint Herman never forgot this great miracle, and he continually interceded to her for his beloved Aluit and himself to the end of his days.
Another great miracle which is celebrated in the life of the Orthodox Church is the time in the tenth century AD, when the All-Holy Theotokos saved the City of Constantinople from an army of Barbarians. Many people had gathered in the Church at Blachernae praying and begging her to intercede for them for the army of the Emperor was outnumbered and defeat was almost inevitable.
Suddenly the All-Holy Theotokos with Saint John the Baptist and some other angels and saints appeared in the Church. The All-Holy Theotokos appeared in the centre of the Church and knelt down in prayer with tears streaming from her face. She then took off her veil, and miraculously spread it over the people as a sign of her protection. Immediately the Barbarian invasion failed, and the God-Fearing people of Constantinople were saved from what would have been a disastrous defeat. We celebrate this feast on the 14th of October every year.
These are but two accounts of miracles wrought through the intercession of the All-Holy Theotokos. I write them to encourage you to pray to her so that she may intercede to our Lord and Saviour on your behalf. I have been helped many times through her intercession. I encourage you to pray a prayer which we call the Theotokon; it is a short but incredibly powerful prayer- I will write it at the bottom of the homily.
Finally, I need to address a charge which is often brought against us Orthodox Christians by those from Evangelical and Protestant backgrounds. This being that we worship the All-Holy Theotokos – well, in all actuality, we do not, for we venerate her because of what she does for us. Not only what she did in her earthly life but what she does now in her heavenly life.
She said yes to the All-Holy Trinity and consented to become the Mother of God - in Greek; we call her the All-Holy Theotokos.
Without this, yes, the Incarnation of our Lord and Saviour would not have happened. The All-Holy Trinity could have chosen to bring about salvation in some other way, yet He wanted to bring it about in a way that restored our fallen nature. Therefore, as the second Person of the All-Holy Trinity, He took on our nature becoming man- two natures perfectly connected with no change or alteration. In other words, Christ has two natures, one Divine and the other Human perfectly united in one God-man, for Christ is God the second Person of the All-Holy Trinity.
By taking on our fallen nature, He rehabilitated that which was bound in chains by the bondage of sin leading to the death and restored it to its original potential by His death and resurrection in the flesh. I say restored it to its original potential because we still have free will and can still choose to act for the good or act in a way that will lead to eternal disconnection (damnation) to the source of all life, the All-Holy Trinity.
You see, Christ is the new Adam in that He by His death and resurrection makes it possible for all men and women to fight the good fight and win the best prize of all – eternal communion with the All-Holy Trinity! The choice is ours, and if we so choose, there is a victory feast quite different to any earthly feast where the only sentiment is pure love. Yes, we can taste of this Heavenly Food on Earth through the Mysteries of the Church – especially the All-Holy Eucharist, but in this Heavenly Feast, we will be able to see and directly communicate with our Lord and Saviour.
If Christ is the new Adam, then it follows that the All-Holy Theotokos is the new Eve. Unlike Eve, she followed the commands of the All-Holy Trinity and did not succumb to the temptation of unwarranted pride, which only comes from the Evil One.
Therefore, being the new Eve (who is the Ark of the New Covenant in that Christ was sheltered in her Womb), it is fitting that she was the second person from the New Covenant to experience the resurrection. For at her death her soul went to Heaven. Like her Son, she rose bodily and was assumed into Heaven where both body and soul would be united together. This is why it makes no sense to state that she did not die, for Holy Tradition states that she did, and being the new Eve, it is appropriate that she was the second person to experience the resurrection!
Theotokon:
It is truly meet to bless you, O Theotokos, ever-blessed and pure, and the Mother of our God. More honourable than the Cherubim, and beyond compare than the Seraphim, you who without corruption gave birth to God the word. True Theotokos, we magnify you!
Say this prayer as often as you like in a meditative state, offering your prayer to God.
