All Orthodoxy, my dear brothers, celebrates and festalizes today with joy, gladness, and exultation the great Theotokos feast of the repose of the Mother of God. All generations of Orthodox have honored, glorified, and blessed her for 20 centuries now, not only because there was the only Mother of God, but also because through her, "the conditions of nature were conquered," as the holy hymnographer notes in a trope of the festive chanting service: "All generations shall call us blessed, the only Mother of God. The conditions of nature have been conquered...", which is inspired by the prophetic words of the Mother of God: "For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed." Not only the earth but also the heavens, all the heavenly angelic powers, the Church triumphant in the heavens and the Church militant on earth, participate in the joy and gladness of this day: "The heavens rejoice at your glorious repose... the whole earth is glad...", sings the hymnographer in another trope. And this is because the repose of the Mother of God was not a simple death, but had something special and unique about it. It was a life-giving death. That is, a death in which her all-holy body did not experience corruption and dissolution, as happens to all humans, but after the separation of the soul from her body, there followed the bodily Resurrection and Translation of the All-Holy Mother of our Lord, according to the hymnographer: "for dying, she is resurrected with her Son, making it eternal," and again in another trope he writes: "just as she preserved the Virgin at the giving of birth, so she preserved the body incorrupt in the tomb, and glorified it with a divine translation, as a Mother bestowing grace upon her Son."
The Holy Mother of God is the most honorable and precious, the holiest and highest thing that humanity has to offer to the Leader of our salvation, Christ. She is more honorable and glorious than all creation, visible and invisible, holier than all the saints without exception, the "more honorable than the Cherubim and incomparably more glorious than the Seraphim." She is the cause of our salvation after God. She is the one who prepared herself as the only suitable dwelling place of God, so that the Son and Word of God might take, through the Holy Spirit, human nature "from her pure and virginal blood," so that our Lord and God might come to earth and bring to completion the work of the incarnate Divine Economy, the salvation of all humanity.
This incomparable superiority of our Panagia (All-Holy) in relation to all the saints and all created creation beyond others is also seen in the wonderful events that took place at the time of her departure from this present life. As the relevant Tradition informs us, when the time came for her to leave this vain world and fulfill the universal debt—the "common debt" of death—clouds seized the holy apostles, who were then scattered to the ends of the ecumene, as well as other prominent saints of that era, such as Saint Dionysius the Areopagite and Saint Hierotheus, Bishop of Athens, and brought them to the house where the Mother of God resided, partly to be present at her funeral, honoring her with their presence in the final moments of her earthly life, and partly to herald the Mother of Life with spiritual hymns and odes and to bury her all-holy body in the Garden of Gethsemane. Simultaneously, at the moment of the departure of her blessed soul from her all-holy body, the Son and God Himself came in person, accompanied by hosts of angels, to receive her all-holy soul into the heavenly tabernacles. These superlative and wonderful events are described and attributed hymnologically by our Church in the octoechos doxology of Vespers: "With a divine spirit...", in the exaposteilarion of the feast: "Apostles from the ends...", and in other tropes, while Byzantine iconography depicts the event in portable icons and frescoes located on the western side of temples with unerring accuracy, vitality, and vividness.
But the wonderful events connected with the event of the Dormition have a continuation. When, three days after her burial, her tomb was opened again due to the Apostle Thomas—who, according to the divine economy, was not present at the time of the burial, so that he too might venerate her life-giving relics—the tomb was found empty. The Lord did not allow that all-pure body, which had hosted Him for nine months, to undergo corruption and dissolution, but translated it into the heavens incorrupt and immortal, to subsequently reunite with her all-holy soul. She who endowed the Divine Logos with human nature, in a similar way, dies and rises toward the divine, indeed, and true life. How could it be otherwise, since the Son Himself, the Pantocrator Lord, accepted to undergo natural human death for the sake of the life and salvation of the world? Thus, now she too, "imitating her Creator and Son, by nature submits to the laws of nature," according to the successful expression of the hymnographer, and by nature rises, incorrupt from death, and is translated, taking up her body into the heavenly tabernacles of the Kingdom of Heaven. Therefore, we can say that our Panagia is the first human to enter the Kingdom of Heaven with her incorrupt and immortal body, the first human to enjoy from now on the goods of the Kingdom of Heaven, which the saints are to enjoy after the resurrection of the dead, at the Second Coming of our Lord.
If the prayers and intercessions of all the saints for our salvation as sinners have power and bring about wonderful results and bend the mercy of the Lord and God and Savior our Jesus Christ, how much more incomparably greater power do the prayers and intercessions of the Most Holy Lady Mother of God have? Keeping this truth in mind, our Church established that during this period we sing the two Akathist/Paraklesis Canons of our Panagia, which contain wonderful and God-illuminated hymns and prayers, full of the Grace of the Holy Spirit. Hymns in which supplications alternate with thanksgivings to our Panagia, responding to all the needs, circumstances, temptations, and sorrows that every human being faces in life. Hymns that soothe pain and pour the balsam of comfort and hope into souls suffering from the tribulations of life. That support us in faith and strengthen us in our struggle against sin. That grant us a supra-worldly peace and strength.
Let us therefore approach the Mother of Life and Mother of us all with courage and faith, and let us pray to Her with "unwavering hope." Let us thank Her for her blessings so far, asking of Her the Grace, mercy, and protection from temptations and sorrows, and deliverance from mental and physical illnesses.
Let us entreat Her not only for our personal needs but also more generally for our Homeland, especially in these difficult days of general apostasy and upheaval of all things that humanity is experiencing globally. The Panagia has been, especially for us Greeks, "the unwavering protection," "the Victorious General," "the fiery pillar," who led our Race on the path of triumph and glory, the Mother of Romiosyne (the Greek/Byzantine identity), who accompanied it through the centuries. Therefore, our pious people have a special devotion to the Lady of the Angels and to Her they run and call upon in times of danger and affliction. Let us also flee to Her with fervent prayers and supplications, so that even now and in the future, until the end of the ages, she may be "the Victorious General" and the incomparable helper for us personally and for our nation. Amen.