Question
On the day of her Dormition, was the Mother of God (the Theotokos) translated into heaven with her physical body, or just her soul?
Answer
The answer to this question is to be found in our hymnography, which is based on the apocryphal but Orthodox Book of James, otherwise known as the Protevangelium (2nd century); for Eng. trans. see J. K. Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford, 1993).
Glory. Both now
Plagal 2nd (Tone Six)
At thy deathless Dormition, O Theotokos,
Mother of the Life,
clouds caught the Apostles up into the air:
though dispersed throughout the world,
they were brought together to form a single choir before thy most pure body.
And burying thee with reverence,
they sang aloud the words of Gabriel:
“Hail, thou who art full of grace,
O Virgin Mother,
who knewest not wedlock,
the Lord is with thee.
Entreat Him who is thy Son and our God
to save our souls.”
Source of hymn: The Festal Menaion, trans. Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware (London-Boston, 1984), pp. 525-526.
As the Mother of Life, the Mother of our Lord, God and Saviour, reposed without dying, and on the third day she rose from the dead, and was translated into heaven with her body - following the pattern of Her Son’s and our God’s resurrection - and became the first human being to enjoy the fullness of “the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come” (Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381). Of course, her soul (as the classic icon of the Dormition shows) was immediately received by Christ on the day of Her repose; and her body and soul were united again on the third day.
A few more notes of clarification
There was no place in the Mother of God for death to take hold (cf. Gregory Palamas: The Homilies, Hom. XXXVII, p. 599, n. 569); and St. Gregory adds, “even though for Adam’s sake and to show herself his daughter, she, like her son, yielded for a short time to nature”. Hence, the Mother of God also died, and was raised on the third day (for more details, see St. Gregory Palamas, Hom. XXXVII, 3, p. 290, n. 570).
Furthermore, the death of the Ever-Virgin, like that of her Son before her, was, as St. Maximus the Confessor puts it, “by economy”, and therefore voluntary (Letters to Thalassius LXI, PG 90: 625–645). And the same applies to the death of all the righteous in Christ, see Gregory Palamas, Hom. XII, 2, n. 166; esp. Hom. XVI, 32, n. 224, and Hom. XXI, 5, n. 315; and also nn. 248–249.
Dr. Christopher Veniamin
President
The Mount Thabor Academy