The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary | What is the Assumption of Mary? Mary

The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
What is the Assumption of Mary? Mother Mary.

FACTS DECODED

The bodily taking up of the Virgin Mary into Heaven at the end of her earthly life is known as the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven. The Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, and parts of Anglicanism all hold this belief. The Assumption is known as the Dormition of the Theotokos (a Greek word that literally means "God bearer") in Eastern Orthodox churches. It is worth noting that the belief does not address Mary's natural death.

The Catholic Church teaches as dogma that the Virgin Mary was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory after completing the course of her earthly life. While exercising papal infallibility, Pope Pius XII dogmatically defined this doctrine on November 1, 1950, in the Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus. However, Pope Pius was not proclaiming Assumption belief as something new or novel. There is written evidence of the belief dating back to the fourth century in texts that span several languages and a fairly wide geographical range. The teaching of the Assumption of Mary spread throughout the Christian world, with liturgical celebrations beginning as early as the fifth century in the East. It was first celebrated in the West in the 8th century by Pope Sergius I, and Pope Leo IV later made the feast official. Following the Reformation, theological debate over the Assumption raged on, culminating in 1950 when Pope Pius XII declared it dogma for the Catholic Church. As support for the doctrine, he mentioned “that woman clothed with the sun [Revelation 12:1–2] whom John the Apostle contemplated on the Island of Patmos” in the following paragraph. Pope Pius used modern communications technology available at the time. He asked bishops all over the world to tell him what the people believed and practised – the sensus fideum – the faithful sense. The dogmatic declaration that the Assumption was part of all Catholics' "deposit of faith" was simply a formal declaration of what the faithful already believed and practised.

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