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Eve of Assumption 2005
Fr Allen Shin

According to historical records the Assumption of Mary was first celebrated in Jerusalem in the late fifth century and soon spread to Egypt and on to the West. In Palestine it was kept in August, while the monks in Egypt and Arabia celebrated it in January. The Coptic Church keeps a double feast of Mary – her death on 16 January and her resurrection on 9 August. It was the Emperor Maurice in the late sixth century, who decreed that the Assumption be kept on 15 August throughout the Byzantine Empire.

It doesn’t take much imagination to see why Mary became an important figure in the early Christian tradition. Popular devotional practices eventually need the formal theologizing. The Church Fathers already in the third century began to debate on the theological significance of Mary. Right away two aspects about Mary became the points of controversy: her perpetual virginity and her role and place in the Christian salvation history.

In the latter part of the fourth century, Epiphanius, who was the Bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, wrote an odd treatise called, Panarion, literally meaning ‘Medicine Chest’. In it he listed a catalogue of eighty heresies of his time. Concerning Mary in this work Epiphanius lists two heretical groups: the Antidicomarianites who denied the perpetual virginity of Mary, and the Collyridians, a female sect active in Arabia in the fourth century, who venerated Mary as a goddess and communicated once a year with twice-baked bread offered to her at an altar. Having listed these two heresies, however, Epiphanius simply acknowledged that he knew nothing definite of what happened to Mary at her death.

But, by the middle of the fifth century we have a good indication of what people believed happened to Mary. During the fourth ecumenical council in Chalcedon in 451, the Emperor Marcion and the Empress Pulcheria expressed their desire to possess the body of Mary the Mother of God. Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, responded that Mary died in the presence of all the Apostles, but, later when her tomb was opened at the request of St Thomas, it was empty, whereupon the Apostles concluded that her body had been taken up to heaven.

The significance of this statement is not in the fact that a bishop declared it. Bishops in those days said all kinds of silly things and were often in dispute with each other over one issue or another. I suppose it’s comforting to know that little has changed in the Church since then.

But, one critical standard adopted early on to measure the orthodoxy of a faith statement was the Apostolic tradition. The fact that the Assumption of Mary was handed down from the Apostles made this doctrine now orthodox. Juvenal’s statement lays out two fundamental aspects of the belief in Mary’s Assumption: that she physically died and that she was taken up body and soul into heaven.

Even before the Council of Chalcedon, however, the theological foundation of the Assumption had already been laid out in the Council of Ephesus in 431. This council had to deal with ascribing to Mary the title Theotokos, Mother of God or Bearer of God. Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, insisted that Mary should not be called Mother of God because it implied that she was divine. She should rather be called Mother of Christ. This had an important ramification on the unity of the human and the divine in Jesus Christ. If the person Mary bore was simply a human being and not a God, then this had the danger of implying two persons or two Christs as he was accused of teaching by his nemesis Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria. In the end, Nestorius failed to defend himself and to come up with an adequate theory. He was defrocked at Ephesus and later exiled and condemned.

It was Cyril’s theory which won the day and has come down to us as the orthodox doctrine. He worked out a salvation paradigm which he called divinisation and used the very notion of the assumption. In the Incarnation, the Word of God took to himself or assumed the human flesh of Mary in her womb. The flesh of Mary now became divinised to give birth to the Son of God. She gave birth to Christ our God and so, she is the Mother of God. In the similar manner, Cyril suggested that we who partake of the Body of Christ in the Eucharist now are made divine; we are assumed into the Body of Christ.

It is this doctrine of Theotokos which became the foundation of all the Marian doctrines. Having ascribed to Mary the title Mother of God now, it is not surprising to see the sudden flowering of the Marian devotion and iconography from the sixth century onwards.

A theologian in the latter half of the sixth century, Theoteknos of Livas in Palestine, was the first to develop the doctrine of the Assumption. He drew a parallel between the notion of Mary’s title Theotokos and Mary’s Assumption. If Mary’s flesh was assumed by the Word of God to give birth to Christ, then it is fitting that she at her death should be assumed into heaven to be united with her son Jesus Christ. This is also precisely what John Henry Newman would argue in his sermon on the Assumption of Mary. Theoteknos even worked out a rich and elegant Trinitarian formula in his Marian doctrine: “For she, the only one, pleased God the Father. She, the Virgin, pleased the subsistent Word born of the Father from all eternity. She, the Virgin, pleased the life-giving Spirit, the enlightener of all, who fashions all the citizens of heaven.”

The recent ecumenical document on Mary by the Anglican and Roman Catholic International Commission is entitled Mary: Hope and Grace in Christ. The title captures two important aspects of Mary’s place and role in the Christian paradigm of salvation. In fact, Mary’s life reveals the paradigm of God’s act of salvation in human history. The history of Mary’s life is a revelation of God. The mystery of her life affects the salvation of all mankind.

Mary was greeted by an angel with the words, “The Lord is with you.” God was with Mary and she was filled with God’s grace, his presence. Every bit of her body and soul was completely assumed by God’s grace. She belonged entirely to God.

When Mary declared that she was the handmaid of the Lord, she was indeed acknowledging her belonging to God. The word handmaid here implies a servant or a slave in those days. Slaves in those days were property of their master. It affirms her complete dependence upon God’s pleasure and her readiness to place herself entirely at God’s disposal. Having given herself over to God’s pleasure as his handmaid, she was completely open to the mystery of God. In confessing that she was God’s handmaid, Mary also exposed the depth of her soul to God.

God was with Mary and this was her grace. But, God’s grace always calls his servant into an action. For Mary the grace which filled her called her to be with the Lord. In flesh and blood she became one with the triune God in the Incarnation. And she fulfilled this commission in a sublime manner. Thus, in Mary the Incarnation took the form of a living encounter between God the Redeemer and mankind waiting for the Messiah.

Mary willingly received what God was about to do through her; she actively cooperated in the most profound way in the work of her own redemption, paving the way for the redemption of all mankind. She is the first to receive God’s redemption. In this way she possesses a universal significance for all of us within God’s plan of salvation. She is the prototype, so to speak, of the redeemed life, the full realisation of every Christian life. If Christ is the firstfruits of the new creation, Mary, the Assumed, stands before us as the firstfruits of the Redemption. Incorporated in herself are the perfect features of everything that has to be realised in us and in the whole Church.

Mary’s Assumption is the glorious fulfilment of the Magnificat, God’s favour to the poor, the lowly, the forgotten, the oppressed, the outcast Mary’s Assumption points toward the hope of our destiny in heaven in union with Christ. She exemplifies for us the willing partnership and cooperation with God for our personal salvation.

Mary’s vocation as Theotokos, Mother of God, which is both spiritual and bodily concrete, is the sacramental activity anticipating the sacramental significance of the Eucharist. While we cannot literally be the bearers of God ourselves, we are graced and assumed by the Body of Christ in the Eucharist, a foretaste of our redemption. Mary’s Assumption reveals the glory which awaits the body of the Christian, who in this life has been the home of the Body of Christ in the Eucharist.

John of Damascus, who championed the cause of the Iconophile and the Marian devotion in the eighth century, has left us this hymn on the Assumption of Mary.

Young men and maidens, old men and rulers, kings with judges
as you honour the memory of the Virgin and Mother of God,
blessed are you!

Let the mountains of heaven resound with the trumpet of the Spirit;
let hills now rejoice, and let the godlike Apostles leap for joy,
the Queen being translated to her Son,
with whom she rules for ever.

The most sacred translation of your godlike and undefiled Mother
has gathered the celestial ranks of the Powers on high
to rejoice together with those on earth who sing to you
O God, blessed are you!

	ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET
	All Saints, Margaret Street, London, W1W 8JG, UK
Welcome Worship and visitor information Diary dates History and architecture Music The life of the church Sermons Support All Saints Get in touch	Eve of Assumption 2005 Fr Allen Shin According to historical records the Assumption of Mary was first celebrated in Jerusalem in the late fifth century and soon spread to Egypt and on to the West. In Palestine it was kept in August, while the monks in Egypt and Arabia celebrated it in January. The Coptic Church keeps a double feast of Mary – her death on 16 January and her resurrection on 9 August. It was the Emperor Maurice in the late sixth century, who decreed that the Assumption be kept on 15 August throughout the Byzantine Empire. It doesn’t take much imagination to see why Mary became an important figure in the early Christian tradition. Popular devotional practices eventually need the formal theologizing. The Church Fathers already in the third century began to debate on the theological significance of Mary. Right away two aspects about Mary became the points of controversy: her perpetual virginity and her role and place in the Christian salvation history. In the latter part of the fourth century, Epiphanius, who was the Bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, wrote an odd treatise called, Panarion, literally meaning ‘Medicine Chest’. In it he listed a catalogue of eighty heresies of his time. Concerning Mary in this work Epiphanius lists two heretical groups: the Antidicomarianites who denied the perpetual virginity of Mary, and the Collyridians, a female sect active in Arabia in the fourth century, who venerated Mary as a goddess and communicated once a year with twice-baked bread offered to her at an altar. Having listed these two heresies, however, Epiphanius simply acknowledged that he knew nothing definite of what happened to Mary at her death. But, by the middle of the fifth century we have a good indication of what people believed happened to Mary. During the fourth ecumenical council in Chalcedon in 451, the Emperor Marcion and the Empress Pulcheria expressed their desire to possess the body of Mary the Mother of God. Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, responded that Mary died in the presence of all the Apostles, but, later when her tomb was opened at the request of St Thomas, it was empty, whereupon the Apostles concluded that her body had been taken up to heaven. The significance of this statement is not in the fact that a bishop declared it. Bishops in those days said all kinds of silly things and were often in dispute with each other over one issue or another. I suppose it’s comforting to know that little has changed in the Church since then. But, one critical standard adopted early on to measure the orthodoxy of a faith statement was the Apostolic tradition. The fact that the Assumption of Mary was handed down from the Apostles made this doctrine now orthodox. Juvenal’s statement lays out two fundamental aspects of the belief in Mary’s Assumption: that she physically died and that she was taken up body and soul into heaven. Even before the Council of Chalcedon, however, the theological foundation of the Assumption had already been laid out in the Council of Ephesus in 431. This council had to deal with ascribing to Mary the title Theotokos, Mother of God or Bearer of God. Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, insisted that Mary should not be called Mother of God because it implied that she was divine. She should rather be called Mother of Christ. This had an important ramification on the unity of the human and the divine in Jesus Christ. If the person Mary bore was simply a human being and not a God, then this had the danger of implying two persons or two Christs as he was accused of teaching by his nemesis Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria. In the end, Nestorius failed to defend himself and to come up with an adequate theory. He was defrocked at Ephesus and later exiled and condemned. It was Cyril’s theory which won the day and has come down to us as the orthodox doctrine. He worked out a salvation paradigm which he called divinisation and used the very notion of the assumption. In the Incarnation, the Word of God took to himself or assumed the human flesh of Mary in her womb. The flesh of Mary now became divinised to give birth to the Son of God. She gave birth to Christ our God and so, she is the Mother of God. In the similar manner, Cyril suggested that we who partake of the Body of Christ in the Eucharist now are made divine; we are assumed into the Body of Christ. It is this doctrine of Theotokos which became the foundation of all the Marian doctrines. Having ascribed to Mary the title Mother of God now, it is not surprising to see the sudden flowering of the Marian devotion and iconography from the sixth century onwards. A theologian in the latter half of the sixth century, Theoteknos of Livas in Palestine, was the first to develop the doctrine of the Assumption. He drew a parallel between the notion of Mary’s title Theotokos and Mary’s Assumption. If Mary’s flesh was assumed by the Word of God to give birth to Christ, then it is fitting that she at her death should be assumed into heaven to be united with her son Jesus Christ. This is also precisely what John Henry Newman would argue in his sermon on the Assumption of Mary. Theoteknos even worked out a rich and elegant Trinitarian formula in his Marian doctrine: “For she, the only one, pleased God the Father. She, the Virgin, pleased the subsistent Word born of the Father from all eternity. She, the Virgin, pleased the life-giving Spirit, the enlightener of all, who fashions all the citizens of heaven.” The recent ecumenical document on Mary by the Anglican and Roman Catholic International Commission is entitled Mary: Hope and Grace in Christ. The title captures two important aspects of Mary’s place and role in the Christian paradigm of salvation. In fact, Mary’s life reveals the paradigm of God’s act of salvation in human history. The history of Mary’s life is a revelation of God. The mystery of her life affects the salvation of all mankind. Mary was greeted by an angel with the words, “The Lord is with you.” God was with Mary and she was filled with God’s grace, his presence. Every bit of her body and soul was completely assumed by God’s grace. She belonged entirely to God. When Mary declared that she was the handmaid of the Lord, she was indeed acknowledging her belonging to God. The word handmaid here implies a servant or a slave in those days. Slaves in those days were property of their master. It affirms her complete dependence upon God’s pleasure and her readiness to place herself entirely at God’s disposal. Having given herself over to God’s pleasure as his handmaid, she was completely open to the mystery of God. In confessing that she was God’s handmaid, Mary also exposed the depth of her soul to God. God was with Mary and this was her grace. But, God’s grace always calls his servant into an action. For Mary the grace which filled her called her to be with the Lord. In flesh and blood she became one with the triune God in the Incarnation. And she fulfilled this commission in a sublime manner. Thus, in Mary the Incarnation took the form of a living encounter between God the Redeemer and mankind waiting for the Messiah. Mary willingly received what God was about to do through her; she actively cooperated in the most profound way in the work of her own redemption, paving the way for the redemption of all mankind. She is the first to receive God’s redemption. In this way she possesses a universal significance for all of us within God’s plan of salvation. She is the prototype, so to speak, of the redeemed life, the full realisation of every Christian life. If Christ is the firstfruits of the new creation, Mary, the Assumed, stands before us as the firstfruits of the Redemption. Incorporated in herself are the perfect features of everything that has to be realised in us and in the whole Church. Mary’s Assumption is the glorious fulfilment of the Magnificat, God’s favour to the poor, the lowly, the forgotten, the oppressed, the outcast Mary’s Assumption points toward the hope of our destiny in heaven in union with Christ. She exemplifies for us the willing partnership and cooperation with God for our personal salvation. Mary’s vocation as Theotokos, Mother of God, which is both spiritual and bodily concrete, is the sacramental activity anticipating the sacramental significance of the Eucharist. While we cannot literally be the bearers of God ourselves, we are graced and assumed by the Body of Christ in the Eucharist, a foretaste of our redemption. Mary’s Assumption reveals the glory which awaits the body of the Christian, who in this life has been the home of the Body of Christ in the Eucharist. John of Damascus, who championed the cause of the Iconophile and the Marian devotion in the eighth century, has left us this hymn on the Assumption of Mary. Young men and maidens, old men and rulers, kings with judges as you honour the memory of the Virgin and Mother of God, blessed are you! Let the mountains of heaven resound with the trumpet of the Spirit; let hills now rejoice, and let the godlike Apostles leap for joy, the Queen being translated to her Son, with whom she rules for ever. The most sacred translation of your godlike and undefiled Mother has gathered the celestial ranks of the Powers on high to rejoice together with those on earth who sing to you O God, blessed are you!