The Dormition of our Most Holy Lady the Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary (August 15/28)

This is what the Church has received from ancient times from the tradition of the Fathers.

When the time approached that our Savior was well-pleased to take His Mother to Himself, He declared to her through an Angel that three days hence, He would translate her from this temporal life to eternity and bliss. On hearing this, she went up with haste to the Mount of Olives, where she prayed continuously. Giving thanks to God, she returned to her house and prepared whatever was necessary for her burial. While these things were taking place, the Apostles were called from the ends of the earth, where each one happened to be preaching, and brought themselves at once to the house of the Mother of God, who informed them of the cause of their sudden gathering.

As a mother, she consoled them in their affliction, and then raised her hands to Heaven and prayed for the peace of the world. She blessed the Apostles, and, reclining upon her bed with seemliness, gave up her all-holy spirit into the hands of her Son and God.

With reverence and many lights, and chanting burial hymns, the Apostles took up that God-receiving body and brought it to the sepulchre, while the Angels from Heaven chanted with them, and sent forth her who is higher than the Cherubim. But one Jew, moved by malice, stretched his hand upon the bed and immediately received from divine judgment the wages of his audacity. Those covetous hands were severed by an invisible blow. However when he repented and asked forgiveness, his hands were restored.

When they all had reached the place called Gethsemane, they buried there with honour the all-immaculate body of the Theotokos, which was the source of Life. But on the third day after the burial, when they were eating together, and raised up the artos (bread) in Jesus’ Name, in Holy Communion, the Theotokos appeared in the air, saying "Rejoice" to them.

This is how they learned of the bodily assumption of the Theotokos into the Heavens.

In birth, you preserved your virginity; in death, you did not abandon the world, O Theotokos. As mother of life, you departed to the source of life, delivering our souls from death by your intercessions