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Pemptousia (GR) · Aug 13 View source View full article on hyper.nooz.ai

Θεολογικό σχόλιο στην Κοίμηση και Μετάσταση της Θεοτόκου - Pemptousia

🌐 Quote shown in the original Greek — English translation below

… κατά πάντα, υποκείμενη στη φθορά και στο θάνατο, επιλέγεται για να κυοφορήσει, διά της ενεργείας του Αγίου Πνεύματος, το Θεό Λόγο, να κάνει το Θεό άνθρωπο, με σκοπό να γίνει ο άνθρωπος Θεός! Ο Θεός κατέστη Θεάνθρωπος, για να δώσει τη δυνατότητα τον άνθρωπο να γίνει μέτοχος της θεότητας, «ζώον θεούμενον». Στα πάναγνα και αγιασμένα σπλάχνα Της έγινε η μεγάλη συνάντηση και ένωση, Θεού και ανθρώπου. «Παρθενικής από γαστρός, τοις εν σκότει και σκιά σωματωθείς ανέτειλες ήλιος» ψάλλει ο υμνογράφος της εορτής. Αξιώθηκε να συντελεστεί στο πάναγνο σώμα Της η αποκατάσταση της φθαρμένης και τραυματισμένης από την αμαρτία ανθρωπίνης φύσεως. Στο ιερό Της σκήνωμα σκήνωσε ο Θεός. Μέσω Αυτής έλαβε ο Χριστός την ανθρώπινη φύση, την οποία, εντός του παρθενικού της σώματος, την καθάρισε, την αγίασε, την θέωσε και την έκανε και δική Του φύση. Αυτή είναι η πεμπτουσία της υπέρτατης συμβολής …

▲ For · Jesus Christ
Sentiment: positive

The hymn describes Christ as a sun rising from the womb of a Virgin.
🇬🇧 English translation

Theological Commentary on the Dormition and Assumption of the Mother of God - Pemptousia

The great Theotokos feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God constitutes another important milestone of spiritual delight and rich spiritual nourishment for us believers, characterizing it and calling it the 'Easter of Summer,' which we celebrate according to the honor due to the most holy person of the Mother of God. And rightly so, because, according to the holy hymnographer of the feast, 'her glory is a fitting grace, shining with god-bearing light.'

And it is not only we who celebrate, but together with us celebrate 'powers, thrones, dominions, principalities, authorities, and the Cherubim and the burning Seraphim. Earthly beings, adorned with Your divine glory on earth. Kings prostrate with archangels, angels...' the entire creation, because through Her not only was man redeemed, but the entire creation, which 'groans and labors together until now' (Rom. 8:22), with us, due to sin!

We celebrate and festively honor Her death, Her departure from this world, which we call the Dormition. With timely hymns of the highest theological and poetic value, with wonderful melodies and encomiums, with joy and exultation, we hymn Her departure and Her ascent into heaven.

It is truly paradoxical that Christians celebrate death! For the followers of the world's religions, for philosophers, atheists, and generally the 'worldly,' it constitutes a great scandal and an incomprehensible 'folly' to celebrate the anniversary of death rather than birth—this Christian 'eccentricity'! They celebrate birth, which however foreshadows the inevitable coming death. Conversely, in the terrible event of death, they express agony and accompany the dead with wails and lamentations at their 'final resting place,' which is the frozen earth, since 'some say that there is no resurrection of the dead' (1 Cor. 15:12).

For our Orthodox faith, death in Christ is not considered death, but rather birth, or rather rebirth into true life. As an entry into eternal eternity. Because our Redeemer Christ conquered death through His own death and closed forever the eternal and impenetrable gates of Hades for His believers. Through Christ, 'the last enemy, death, is destroyed' (1 Cor. 15:26). Our incarnate God, You came into the world, not to make people better, more pious, or more moral, or to create a superior religion from existing ones, but to redeem the human race that is enslaved to the devil, fallen into sin, and stripped of its predestined path. To conquer the devil, to remove sin from the world, and to abolish its disastrous and destructive result, death (Rom. 6:23). To reunite man with God, giving him the possibility to realize his primordial purpose: his deification by grace. To become 'heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ' (Rom. 8:17).

The Most Holy Theotokos was worthy to become the holiest human person by becoming the Mother of God, the 'Full of Grace' and 'blessed among women' (Luke 1:28), 'more honorable than the Cherubim and more glorious than the Seraphim.' The realization of the divine plan for the redemption of the human race, through Her, became a cause for the overturning of natural laws. God became man. The eternal entered into time. The Creator of all was limited within His creation. The Sustainer of all is sustained by His creation. The one born 'before the Morning Star' (Ps. 109:3) from the Father's womb, was born, as a man, from a woman, and specifically a virgin. The Theotokos, always human, subject to corruption and death, is chosen to conceive, through the action of the Holy Spirit, the God Logos, to make God man, so that man might become God! God became God-man, to give man the possibility to become a partaker of divinity, a 'deified being.' In Her all-holy and sanctified womb, the great meeting and union of God and man took place. 'From a virgin womb, having been embodied in darkness and shadow, You rose like the sun,' sings the hymnographer of the feast. She was worthy that in Her all-holy body, the restoration of human nature, corrupted and wounded by sin, would be accomplished. God dwelt in Her holy tabernacle. Through Her, Christ took human nature, which, within the purity of Her body, He cleansed, sanctified, divinized, and made His own nature. This is the 'Pemptousia' (fifth Sunday) of the supreme contribution of the Mother of God to the work of the salvation of the world. Therefore, She was worthy to be distinct from all human persons. To become Panagia (in comparison to human holiness) and to enjoy such honors, 'as a God-born daughter and a virgin.'

Our Panagia, even after Her contribution to the work of salvation, did not appear to have anything shocking or supernatural in Her most holy person and life. She lived in humility, almost in obscurity. She is mentioned very few times in the Holy Gospels, and very few details of Her earthly life were recorded. Most details of Her life we draw from non-canonical tradition. This is not accidental. The protagonist, from a human perspective, of the work of salvation, after having fulfilled Her own contribution, yielded Her place to Her Son, the incarnate Logos, so that His glory might be revealed and the world might understand that 'there is no salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved' (Acts 4:12). Let us not forget that in those turbulent years, a multitude of 'goddesses' of paganism circulated in the religious sphere, in whom the idolatrous world had placed its hope for salvation, and it would have been easy to add another to the pantheon of false saviors.

Although She was worthy of such incomprehensible honors, She lived Her earthly life with humility, quietly, as a pious woman. Her supreme graces remained secret. No one knew the oceans of divine blessings in Her precious person. She lived simply and insignificantly, secretly overshadowed by the grace of God and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. She did not seek primacies or honors. Her maternal instincts had secondary importance, giving priority to respect for the Divinity of Her Son. She looked with awe upon His face, listened with piety and zeal to His divine teachings, and observed His works with admiration. The holy Evangelist informs us that 'she kept all these things in her heart' (Luke 2:51). These graces and blessings became known after Her departure from this world, through Her all-holy Dormition and Her wondrous Assumption into heaven. Then She emerged as 'clothed in divine glory.' After all, the graces of our Panagia are perceived only within the Church, where the mystery of salvation operates. That is why She is honored within the Church by conscious believers, while outside of it, She is attacked and despised!

As a human, therefore, the Theotokos had to follow the rest of humanity into death, since no human can avoid it. The fact of the Fall inevitably led to this painful way of exiting earthly life (Gen. 2:17). Even Christ, (and) as a man, followed this eternal and relentless law. But, as we previously mentioned, after the death and resurrection of Christ, death does not have the same meaning as before. It is no longer the painful end of earthly life and the entry into the dark kingdom of Hades, but an event without ontological consequences for man. A passage from corruption and transience to incorruption and eternity.

If death has been conquered and no longer has ontological consequences for every simple believer, how much more did it have consequences for the Mother of God! According to the teaching and faith of our Church, Her stainless body, which became the throne of Divinity and nourished the Food of all creation, was not to undergo natural corruption in a damp and frozen tomb. After Her burial, God pleased to make Her resurrection immediate, before the precious vessel underwent corruption. She was not to wait for the general resurrection, but at that moment, Her holy soul was united with Her stainless body and was assumed into the heavenly spiritual gifts of divine greatness, to take Her place beside Her Son and to be glorified for ages of ages. God 'Assumed her to the place where He is,' transforming death into a memorial of life; in Her holy person, 'life is commemorated through death'! Therefore, our holy Church has ordained that, along with Her pious Dormition, Her Assumption into heaven also be honored.

The Dormition and Assumption of the Theotokos answer the question of the Apostle Paul: 'How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?' (1 Cor. 15:35). Exactly in this way our own resurrection will be; if we are faithful to Christ, it will be identical to the Assumption of our Panagia; it will happen in the blink of an eye, by the power of God, and with the body of resurrection; it will be the same body of earthly life and nothing else, as various heretics boast. Resurrection means the lifting up—the standing up—the vivification of this specific body, which is fallen, breathless, and dead, and not the creation of some other entity, as the followers of 'Jehovah's Witnesses' [contextual note: referring to a specific sect] maliciously teach. The Theotokos rose—was assumed with Her own body, the one She had before Her Dormition, since Her tomb was found empty after three days, witnessing this great truth. Therefore, we must have unshakable conviction that 'if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you' (Rom. 8:11).

The Dormition and Assumption of the Theotokos is the realization of Christ's promise of eternal life that awaits His believers. Christ made the beginning, He who became the 'firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep' (1 Cor. 15:20), and the confirmation took place in the most holy person of the Theotokos, who followed Him. Her pious Dormition reminds us of the law of death, but, through Her Assumption into heaven, it assures us of the faith and for our own resurrection and assumption, since 'She made a living spring, the Theotokos, from which the corruption of death and the life of those who are to come spring forth.'

This is what we celebrate and festively honor on this great Theotokos feast, the 'incorrupt death' of the Mother of God. The Dormition of the Theotokos and Her Assumption into heaven are simultaneously, for us, the herald of our own restoration. Let us not forget that faith in the resurrection is the foundation of the Church. Faith without the hope of resurrection is a terrible delusion, a nightmare, because 'if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is useless and your faith is useless' (1 Cor. 15:14). For all these reasons, we rejoice and celebrate on the anniversary of the death of the saints of our Church, who conquered the world and transformed death into life. In ecclesiastical language, we call the anniversary of the death of the saints their 'birthday.' Death is real death, horror, and unspeakable agony for the unbelieving and unrepentant, for those who have no hope of resurrection. For those who remain closed in the dungeons of their egoism and obstruct the grace of salvation, which our Christ bestows generously.

Let us all participate, then, in the bright festival of the 'Easter of Summer' and let us render to the Panagia, Mother of our Redeemer Christ, the honor due to Her. To Her, who became the cause of our salvation, the unifying power with our Creator, the bridge through which we passed from corruption to incorruption, to restoration, to sanctification, and to our deification by grace. Let us open our hearts to let in the optimism and joy that flows from the certainty of our redemption in Christ, thanks to the contribution of our Panagia. Let us fill our existence with the certainty that we are not alone in our lives, but we have in heaven our Great Mediator, Jesus Christ, 'who died, and furthermore was raised, and is at the right hand of God, and also intercedes for us' (Rom. 8:34), and His Great Advocate, the Mother, who prays eternally for us, 'who became the Mother of the Creator of all things, Christ our God. Interceding for us.' Having such unshakable supports in our turbulent life, 'let us overcome through Him who loved us,' Christ and His Mother the Panagia, and as such, we are (must be) convinced that 'neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord' (Rom. 8:37-39) and of the Panagia His Mother. Let us join our praises with the holy hymnographer of the feast and let us proclaim from the depths of our hearts, 'rejoicing gloriously': 'Full of Grace, hail! With you is the Lord, who through you provides the great mercy to the world!'

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