by V.K. McCarty | Ελληνικά

It is a privilege to share the Dormition of the Theotokos with you,* especially since the Orthodox manner of regarding the Virgin Mary is in some ways, as on this happy feast-day, perhaps more evolved than in my own church. Mary is so deeply embedded in Orthodox devotion that she is praised in the Divine Liturgy as “more honored than the cherubim, more glorious than the seraphim;” she is venerated as “the Holy Theotokos, most blessed and glorious Mother of God and Blessed Virgin Mary.” In the experience of the Church Year, the Summer fast for Dormition of the Theotokos in these past weeks is one of the four great fasts of the year—and the Feast itself is at once mystical, eschatological, even Paschal in nature.

The Dormition Gospel from St. Luke demonstrates how Mary’s life has become for us an important keystone in God’s Salvation history. For in contemplating the Virgin Mary, “the first of the faithful,” through the lens of the Martha and Mary story (Luke 10:38-42), we receive resolution to the tension which always presents itself between the two ways—the archetypal way of Martha and the archetypal way of Mary. Yet, rather than choosing which one is right and which one is wrong, in Mary the Mother of Jesus we see revealed the embodiment of both: on the one hand authoritative and outspoken action in faith, such as her handling of the Wedding at Cana (John 2:1-11), and on the other hand, serene prayerful stillness, such as the Shepherds saw at the Nativity, when Mary treasured all these things “and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).