In the Arms of Her Son

Today is the Feast of the Dormition (Falling-Asleep) of the Virgin Mary Theotokos. I ran across this icon online, and it’s new to me; it’s not an icon that we have in the Orthodox Church. It depicts our Lord with his Mother, after she has been taken into heaven after her death. How lovely to see mother and son reunited like this. It’s so very human.

I image-searched and found many others, but this one is my favorite. It comes from a 2016 edition of the newsletter of the Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin, in New York City. Apparently a parishioner had commissioned it, and there’s a photo of it being blessed.

I soon ran across the original, a fresco (badly aged), painted by Cimabue in 1272-1280, in the Upper Church of St. Francis, in Assisi, Italy.

Orthodox believe that, shortly before her death, all of the Apostles came to Jerusalem to be with her. St. Thomas alone wasn’t there, and when he arrived he asked them to open the coffin so he could see her one last time. When they opened the coffin, it was empty.

Both Catholic and Orthodox theology say that Mary was taken bodily into heaven, like we all will be one day.

The image hasn’t lasted well. There are many factors—the weather, earthquakes, the paints available to Cimabue, the method of fresco he used, lots of things. It’s a shame. And unfortunately the places that would have been brightest, like the faces of Christ and his mother at the top, were made with a paint called “lead white.”

Over time the lead oxidizes, like silver tarnishing, so now the brightest places are dark. You can still make out the faces somewhat in this closeup.

There is a tomb of Mary in Jerusalem at the foot of the Mount of Olives. A staircase leads down to a first-century Jewish tomb.

It is here that her body was laid upon a stone platform.

We Orthodox fast (keep a vegan diet) from August 1-14, and break our fast rejoicing on August 15, the day of St. Mary’s death. It is funny to think of celebrating a death. On August 29 we will observe the day St. John the Forerunner died with a strict fast: no meat, dairy, eggs, fish, olive oil, or alcohol. He died in a horrific way, and it cost us our appetite. But two weeks earlier we celebrated Mary’s death with a feast.

At the loss of a loved one, some of us can’t bring ourselves to eat, while others start eating everything in sight. Friends bring great quantities of food to the family home. We are human. We love our mother Mary, and eat heartily on the day of her death, and long for the joyous time when we will see her again.

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