“What does the Orthodox Church officially teach about the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary? Was she taken bodily into Heaven or was she not?
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“that the Mother of God could have chosen not to die and could have been taken bodily into heaven by her Son
“Although the Mother of God passes through death and is then taken up to heaven in body as well as in soul, she remains forever present in the world through her prayers
“Although the Mother of God was humble throughout her life, she was not absent. Just as the Ascension of the Lord did not mean, and did not remain, an absence from the midst of the Church, so too the passing of the Mother of God from this life into eternity did not result in an absence
“the Mother of God received with joy the news of her departure from earthly life and then fell asleep in the Lord
“the Dormition calls every Orthodox Christian to prepare for the passage from earthly life to heavenly life
“The Holy Fathers who spoke about the Dormition of the Mother of God did not try to conceal the reality of death. On the contrary, it was precisely in her death that they saw the power of Christ’s Resurrection revealed.
“Today, the Church does not mourn a death, but celebrates a translation from death to life; the Church does not lament a separation, but rejoices in the passage from the temporal to the eternal, from earth to heaven, from corruption to incorruption, and from the vanity of this world to the true life. For this reason, the Dormition of the Theotokos is for all of us a feast of hope, consolation and joy, since we feel that, through her translation from death to life, Panagia is even closer to us and remains beside us. As the Apolytikion of the feast proclaims: ‘In your Dormition, O Theotokos, you did not abandon the world.'
“the Roman Catholic dogma regarding Mary’s departure was promulgated as recently as November 1, 195