Happy Name Day to Mara and Happy Birthday to Mom!
May God grant you both many happy years!
The Dormition of our Most Holy Lady the Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary
August 15
Apolytikion in the First Tone
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.
Kontakion in the Second Tone
Neither the grave nor death could contain the Theotokos, the unshakable hope,
ever vigilant in intercession and protection. As Mother of life, He who dwelt
in the ever-virginal womb transposed her to life.
Reading:
Concerning the Dormition of the Theotokos, this is what the Church has received
from ancient times from the tradition of the Fathers. When the time drew nigh
that our Savior was well-pleased to take His Mother to Himself, He declared
unto 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, clouds caught up the Apostles
from the ends of the earth, where each one happened to be preaching, and
brought them 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 as was meet, 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, audaciously stretched forth his hand upon the bed
and immediately received from divine judgment the wages of his audacity. Those
daring hands were severed by an invisible blow. But when he repented and asked
forgiveness, his hands were restored. When they had reached the place called
Gethsemane, they buried there with honor 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,
as was their custom, the Theotokos appeared in the air, saying "Rejoice" to
them. From this they learned concerning the bodily translation of the Theotokos
into the Heavens.
These things has the Church received from the traditions of the Fathers, who
have composed many hymns out of reverence, to the glory of the Mother of our
God (see Oct. 3 and 4).
Reading courtesy of Holy Transfiguration Monastery
Apolytikion courtesy of Narthex Press
Kontakion courtesy of Narthex Press
Icon courtesy of Theologic Systems
