East and West of the Theotokos
Both Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics celebrate the reception of the Virgin Mary’s soul and body into heaven on August 15th, a day known as the Dormition of the Theotokos to the East and the Assumption of Mary to the West. While both Eastern and Western traditions draw on the same ancient sources for their beliefs about this sacred event, their interpretations of the meaning of it can be quite different. Although both agree on the essence of the Dormition/Assumption itself, the details and their implications diverge and, in some cases, even contradict each other.
In the spirit of charity, I will start with the similarities. Both East and West can agree that the Virgin Mary’s body and soul were miraculously taken up by God into heaven at the end of her earthly life. This event was befitting of her, as she is holiest of all saints by virtue of giving birth to God in the flesh. We both agree that because her Son, Jesus, cared enough for his Mother to entrust her to the care of St. John the Theologian as He was dying, it can be inferred that her same Son would also care enough for his Mother to not let her face corruption and decay at the end of her earthly life. Thus she was miraculously taken up into heaven.
The differences start to appear when one goes into further detail. Did the Virgin Mary die before she was taken up into heaven? The East answers this question with an emphatic yes. Part of the reason for this yes is that the Theotokos is, according to St. Irenaeus of Lyons, the new Eve who undoes everything that the old Eve did wrong. The old Eve spoke to a fallen angel and death entered the world, whereas the new Eve spoke to a heavenly angel and Life Himself entered the world. The old Eve died and remained in a state of death and hell, whereas the new Eve died and was received into life and heaven. In order to keep the parallelism of this theology straight, it is necessary for the Virgin Mary to die before being received body and soul into heaven. Furthermore, her death allows her to likewise be a partaker of the death and resurrection of her Son, demonstrating that she also needs a Savior to save her from sin and death (1).
On the other hand, the West tends to waffle on the question of whether or not the Virgin Mary died. The papal encyclical on the Assumption, Munificentissimus Deus by Pope Pius XII, uses the ambiguous phrase “having completed the course of her earthly life,” which leaves open the question of whether or not she died before being received into heaven. This ambiguity was almost certainly intended by Pope Pius XII in order to account for the existence of the Eastern Catholic churches, who share the same view as the Orthodox on the Dormition.
Despite this waffling however, many western Catholics firmly believe that the Virgin Mary did not die before being assumed into heaven (2). This is depicted by western Catholic art, which often portrays the Virgin Mary physically ascending into the heavens carried on a cloud of angels. This, for Orthodox theology, is a problem. If the Son of God Himself submits to a physical death by crucifixion for the salvation of the human race, should not also His Mother submit to death in order to participate in the salvific act of her Son? The lack of the Virgin Mary’s death in western theologies of the Assumption also ruins the parallelism established by St. Irenaeus of Lyons’ theology, as discussed previously.
It is evident then that central disagreement between East and West on the Dormition/Assumption is whether or not the Virgin Mary died. Believing in her death is absolutely essential for Eastern Christians, not only because it is correct theologically, but also because it is portrayed in our iconography and hymns of the Church. May the most holy Theotokos, who was “transported unto life as the Mother of Life” intercede for us as we prepare to celebrate her death and assumption into heaven on August 15th (3)!
1: Some Orthodox Christians hold that the Virgin Mary was physically resurrected on earth before being assumed into heaven. For more info, see Bishop Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia, in: Festal Menaion [London: Faber and Faber, 1969], p. 64 or this article from the OCA.
2: I learned this through personal experience talking with Roman Catholics.
3: Ages Initiative, “Liturgy on Saturday, August 15.”
