The Dormition of the Mother of God is a Great Feast of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern Catholic Churches (except the East Syriac churches). It celebrates the “falling asleep” (death) of Mary the Theotokos (“Mother of God”, literally translated as God-bearer), and her being taken up into heaven. The Feast of the Dormition is observed on August 15, which for the churches using the Julian calendar corresponds to August 28 on the Gregorian calendar. The Armenian Apostolic Church celebrates the Dormition not on a fixed date, but on the Sunday nearest 15 August. In Western Churches, the corresponding feast is known as the Assumption of Mary, except the Scottish Episcopal Church, which has traditionally celebrated the Falling Asleep of the Blessed Virgin Mary on August 15.
Christian canonical scriptures do not record the death or Dormition of Mary. Hippolytus of Thebes, a 7th- or 8th-century author, writes in his partially preserved chronology of the New Testament that Mary lived for 11 years after the death of Jesus, dying in AD 41.
The use of the term dormition expresses the belief that the Virgin died without suffering, in a state of spiritual peace. This belief does not rest on any scriptural basis, but is affirmed by Orthodox sacred tradition. Some apocryphal writings testify to this opinion, though neither the Orthodox Church nor other Christians accord them scriptural authority. The Orthodox understanding of the Dormition is compatible with Roman Catholic teaching and was the dominant belief within the Western Church until late in the Middle Ages, when the slightly different belief in the bodily Assumption of Mary into heaven began to gain ground.
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In Orthodoxy and Catholicism, in the language of the scripture, death is often called a sleeping or falling asleep (Greek κοίμησις; whence κοιμητήριον > coemetērium > cemetery, a place of sleeping; Latin: dormire, to sleep). A prominent example of this is the name of this feast; another is the Dormition of Saint Anna, Mother of the Virgin Mary.
Epiphanius of Salamis (c. 310/20–403), If any think I am mistaken, moreover, let them search through the scriptures and neither find Mary’s death, nor whether or not she died, nor whether or not she was buried—even though John surely travelled throughout Asia. And yet, nowhere does he say that he took the holy Virgin with him. Scripture kept silence because of the overwhelming wonder, not to throw men’s minds into consternation. For I dare not say—though I have my suspicions, I keep silent. Perhaps, just as her death is not to be found, so I may have found some traces of the holy and blessed Virgin…The holy virgin may have died and been buried—her falling asleep was with honour, her death in purity, her crown in virginity. Or she may have been put to death—as the scripture says, ‘And a sword shall pierce through her soul’—her fame is among the martyrs and her holy body, by which light rose on the world, amid blessings. Or she may have remained alive, for God is not incapable of doing whatever he wills. No one knows her end.
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The Dormition tradition is associated with various places, most notably with Jerusalem, which contains Mary’s Tomb and the Basilica of the Dormition, and Ephesus, which contains the House of the Virgin Mary, and also with Constantinople, where the Cincture of the Theotokos was enshrined from the 5th through 14th centuries.