(Above) One of our young worshippers at the Feast of the Dormition at St. John’s, where we honored the Mother of our God and of us all in the Church, and following Orthodox Christian tradition also bless flowers, fragrant herbs, and seeds.
(Bel0w) An homily from St. John’s for the Dormition of our Most Holy Theotokos, by Priest Paul Siewers.

The Dormition, the falling asleep of the Most Holy Mother of God, also known as the Summer Pascha, is a time of reflection and renewal, of transition and passing in the Church year–

–From the old towards the new Church year

–From the summer towards the winter

–Looking ahead to the death of the last Old Testament Prophet John soon, and to our Lady’s Nativity in the new year

–And ultimately toward the birth of her Son our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ in high winter, the ultimate tidings of comfort and joy.

Dormition means falling-asleep, a term we use when we express the hope that the faithful have fallen asleep in the Lord, as did our brother John this spring when we laid him to rest as the first Orthodox Christian burial in our Churchyard at St. John’s.

Our Lady’s falling asleep is a source of hope because:

–As the greatest of saints yet fully human in her birth and death, she exemplifies the way for us of theosis or oneness with the uncreated grace of God. 

–As she bore in her womb our Lord and gave him in that way His fully human nature, as He is fully God and fully man, so she also is always special in her identification with the Church, the Body of Christ. She is herself the fulfillment of the Old Testament tabernacle or dwelling of God, as exemplified also in her childhood in the Temple’s Holy of Holies.

–In her passing she also even more becomes our intercessor. For according to Church Tradition, even as our Lord and her Son took her soul up to heaven at the time of her passing, pictured in the icon before us as him taking her soul like a baby, so too her tomb was found empty after three days, like our Lord’s. Her Resurrection was in heaven, where her body and soul were reunited, the first such Resurrection before our Lord’s Second Coming. She dwells not only in Paradise the hope of the righteous before the Second Coming, but in heaven with our Lord where she intercedes for us.

At this time of her translation, we also are reminded through her of all the gifts that God has given to us, in this ancient season of Thanksgiving in the Orthodox Church. As the Priest says in the Liturgy of the Holy Gifts, “Thine own of Thine own we offer unto Thee, on behalf of all and for all!” Like the Theotokos, we are reminded most of all to offer ourselves to Him, while we have been giving thanks during the Dormition season by blessing water, remembering the Holy Wood and origins of the Trees of the Cross, blessing honey and fruits and today flowers and fragrant herbage and seeds, and tomorrow for the After-Feast nuts, grains, and bread.

In the New Testament temple we bring ourselves as the unworthy offerings in hopes that, with the uncreated energies of God we also celebrated during the Dormition season at Transfiguration, we may follow the example of the Theotokos and with her intercessions be translated unworthily following her at the time of the Final Judgment. “Come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest,” our Lord promised. And the Dormition is a reminder, an example, a foretaste, and a promise of that rest to us all. Most Holy Theotokos save us!

I conclude with some words from our Father among the saints Ignatius Branchaninov, who wrote a beautiful commentary on the Life of the Mother of God. Here are a few selections from its ending.

“After the ascension of the Lord, the Mother of God, as we see from the book of the Acts of the Apostles, was inseparable from the apostles and lived in the same house, in constant prayer. The holy Evangelist Luke calls these prayers “prayer and supplication” (Acts 1:14), showing that all the activities of the Mother of God and of the apostles were focused on various modes of prayer, and that all their time was dedicated to prayer. It was in the context of this practice and way of life that the Holy Spirit came down upon the Lord’s disciples on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1), for the Holy Spirit always requires a disciple of Christ to prepare himself with the most intensive, constant prayer, before coming down upon him and overshadowing him. On this day, then, the Mother of God received the most abundant gift of the Holy Spirit, enlightening not only her soul but also her body. Her soul and her body themselves became sources of light. The Holy Spirit testifies to this. The holy Church bears witness to it. Spiritual reason affirms it.

“For those who wish to hear historical testimony, we recommend here the account of the Mother of God written by her contemporary in earthly life, St Dionysius the Areopagite, a well-known and learned Athenian, who was converted to Christianity by the holy Apostle Paul (Acts 17:34). Three years after the Areopagite had first believed in the Redeemer, he visited the Mother of God, who since the Lord’s ascension had been living permanently in Jerusalem in the house of the evangelist John. We quote the following from the letter of St Dionysius to the Apostle Paul: 

‘It seemed incredible to me, confessing before God, O our excellent leader and shepherd, that apart from God Himself on high there should be anyone filled with divine power and wondrous grace; no man can attain what I saw and comprehended not only with the eyes of my soul but with my bodily eyes. I saw with my own eyes the godlike Mother, holier than all the powers of heaven, of Christ Jesus, our Lord, whom I was granted to see through the grace of God, the condescension of the supreme apostle (John) and the unspeakable goodness and mercy of the most merciful Virgin. Again and again I confess before the might of God, before the grace of the Saviour and before the glorious honour of the Virgin, His Mother, that when I was brought before the face of the godlike, most holy Virgin by John, the head of the evangelists and prophets, who, living in the flesh, shines like the sun in the heavens, then there shone before me such a great and boundless radiance, not only outside but even more brightly from within, and I was filled with such a wondrous and varied fragrance that neither my weak body nor my soul could endure such and so many signs and elements of eternal blessedness and glory: my heart grew faint, my spirit grew faint within me from her divine glory and grace. I bear witness before God, Who dwelt in the most honourable womb of the Virgin, that if I had not remembered in my newly-illumined mind your divine teaching and commandments, then I would have confessed the Virgin to be God, and would have honoured her with the veneration befitting the one true God: because the mind cannot imagine greater honour and glory for a person glorified by God, than the blessedness that I, the unworthy, was granted to experience, being then entirely blessed and happy. I give thanks to my most good God on high, to the divine Virgin, to the excellent apostle John, and also to you, the highest and most solemn leader of the Church, who mercifully granted me such a blessing.’

“The Mother of God possessed in even greater abundance the grace-filled gifts of the Holy Spirit in which the apostles abounded. She had not only the gift of prophecy but also that of spiritual discernment and of wonderworking, and countless other gifts known to herself and to the Giver of these gifts. Incurable diseases were cured when their sufferers touched her. Her virgin body, sanctified by God, became a vessel and source of miracles. Just as the image of the Apostle Peter made on the ground by his shadow performed miracles (Acts 5:15), so the icons of the Mother of God to this day perform miracles across the earth preaching, bearing witness, and sealing with signs the truth of Christ’s teaching. The rays of the sun were the painters of the miraculous images of the Apostle. The apostles and the holy saints were the painters of the spiritual rays of the Sun of righteousness, of God and the Son of the Ever-Virgin, the wonderworking icons of the Mother of God. On the third day after her blessed dormition, the Mother of God rose from the dead, and she now dwells in the heavens in soul and in body. She not only dwells in the heavens: she reigns there. As the Mother of the Heavenly King, she has been proclaimed the heavenly Queen, and Queen of the holy angels and of holy people. She has been granted special power and special boldness in intercession before God on behalf of humanity. The holy Church, turning with requests to all the greatest saints of God, to all the angels and archangels, says to them: “Pray to God for us.” Only to the Mother of God does the Church use the words “save us.” The Mother of God is the greatest intercessor and helper of all those who labor to please God, and of all those who have dedicated their earthly life to serving God. When she appeared to a certain holy monk, she healed him from a grave illness and said that he belonged to her family. She is a quick consolation to those who mourn and weep. She speaks for those who repent; she is a true refuge for sinners who wish to return to God; she is a fervent intercessor for them before God. 

“Standing before the Mother of God, in deep reverence toward her greatness, in solemn bewilderment and astonishment, in the joy of faith and love, the children of the Orthodox Church bring to the Ever-Virgin the most joyful doxology. Accept, Lady, these infant voices, this infant prattling, attempting out of fervor of heart to define your greatness, and unable to do so from weakness of reason, from lack of words, from your boundless greatness. 

“Hail, tabernacle of God the Word! Hail, Holy of Holies! Hail, throne of the Almighty! Hail, enclosure of the God whom nothing can enclose! Hail, most holy chariot of Him who rides upon the cherubim! Hail, best of all dwellings for Him who is above the seraphim! Hail, height hard to climb for the thoughts of men! Hail, depth hard to scan even for the eyes of angels! Hail, tidings doubted by unbelievers! Hail, undoubted glory of the faithful! Hail, for thou provest devoid of reason those skilled in reason’s art! Hail, for the cunning disputants are shown to be fools! Hail, for thou hast torn asunder the tangled webs of the Athenians! Hail for thou hast filled (with spiritual knowledge) the nets (of faith) of the fishermen! Most holy Birthgiver of God! Glory to you! Most holy Birthgiver of God, save us! Amen.”

With all that, the Theotokos also remains for each of us our Mother in the Church.

Most holy Theotokos save us! Joyous Feast!

(Quotation from The Harvest: Spiritual Nourishment for the Church Year, Holy Trinity Publications)