In the troparion "In the Nativity Thou Preserved Her Virginity," the hymnographers seem to enjoy the multiplication of a number of "impossibility" arising from one name: Mother of God. The Virgin becomes the Mother; a woman gives birth to Him whom the whole world cannot contain, a mortal woman is born into eternal life. The priest Theodore LUDOGOVSKY and the poet Olga SEDAKOVA comment.
Dormition. Russia, XIV century

Troparion, tone 1:
At Christmas, you kept your virginity,
in the dormition of the world did not leave you, Mother of God,
you died to the stomach,
Mother of the Essence of the Belly,
and by your prayers you deliver
from the death of our soul.

Greek original
Ἐν τῇ Γεννήσει τὴν παρθενίαν ἐφύλαξας,
ἐν τῇ Κοιμήσει τὸν κόσμον οὐ κατέλιπες Θεοτόκε.
Μετέστης πρὸς τὴν ζωήν,
μήτηρ ὑπάρχουσα τῆς ζωῆς,
καὶ ταῖς πρεσβείαις ταῖς σαῖς λυτρουμένη,
ἐκ θανάτου τὰς ψυχὰς ἡμῶν.

Translation by Olga Sedakova
When you gave birth, you kept your virginity.
Having rested, You did not leave the world, Mother of God:
For she came to life
Thou true Mother of Life,
And with your intercession you deliver
Our souls from death.

Comparing the Assumption with Easter is fraught with a serious dogmatic mistake, warns priest Theodore LUDOGOVSKY:

- In the Orthodox Church there are many holidays dedicated to the Most Holy Theotokos. If you follow the chronology of events, then the first of them is the conception of the Virgin righteous Anna(December 9/22); then - the Nativity of the Mother of God (September 8/21), Entry into the Temple (November 21 / December 4), Candlemas (February 2/15), Annunciation (March 25 / April 7), Assumption (August 15/28). Then follow the festivities established in memory of the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin, about the miracles performed by Her in different eras church history: this is the Feast of the Intercession (October 1/14), and the memory of the Sign of the Virgin in Veliky Novgorod (November 27 / December 10), and celebrations in honor of dozens of icons of the Mother of God.

The main among all these holidays can be considered the Assumption - just as the main day of memory of a saint is usually the day of his death, just like the main Lord's holiday - Easter, the remembrance of the death and Resurrection of Christ.

The Dormition is often called the Mother of God Easter, but such a name seems undesirable: the long-standing and unrelenting tendency to “pull up” the veneration of the Mother of God to the level of veneration of the Savior is quite obvious (this can be seen in everything - from spelling to hymnography) - but such a desire conflicts with the dogmatic teaching of the Orthodox Church : Lord Jesus Christ - God and man, Creator and Savior; The Mother of God is only a person, although she has contained the Divine in herself. Her ministry was absolutely exceptional, our salvation would have been impossible without her; however, Her human nature did not change, She, like all people, was subject to death. Therefore, one would like to hope for a more sober attitude to the veneration of the Mother of God - as well as to the veneration of many saints.

The Feast of the Assumption has a one-day fore-feast (immediately after the giving of the Transfiguration of the Lord); his afterfeast lasts eight days. The Dormition of the Theotokos is the last twelfth feast in the church year, beginning September 1/14 and ending in August. Two weeks after the giving of the Dormition, the fore-feast of the first twelfth feast of the year, the Nativity of the Virgin, begins.

What is safer to be silent about?

Explanations to the text of the troparion:

1. In Christmas, in dormition- here we mean not the holidays of the Nativity of Christ and the Assumption of the Most Holy Theotokos, but the very actions of birth and death. Dormition(sleep) from sleep- fall asleep; the traditional metaphor of death as a dream (just like the Russian “to rest”) takes on a more concrete meaning here. According to church tradition, the coming resurrection from the dead, which the entire human race (including the saints) awaits, is no longer required by her.

2. Reposed to the belly, the mother of the being of the belly. The same word stomach(life) has here a few different meanings. In first use stomach means life, eternal life. In the second - Christ, who is life (“I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6)); Who brought into the world “life, and life in abundance” (John 10:10)). In this sense, it can be said about the Mother of God that she gave birth to Life to people.

3. Mother of being- literally: abiding, become forever.

4. by your prayers- glory. prayer, which conveys the Greek πρεσβεία, here means “request”, “petition”, and specifically, a petition for pardon.

SUB SPECIE POETICAE

Orthodox liturgical hymns dedicated to the Most Holy Theotokos are, as a rule, very complex and "dogmatic" more than lyrical. This is especially noticeable when compared with traditional Latin hymnography, with such classical examples as Stella Maris (“Star of the Seas”), Pulcherrima Rosa (“Most Beautiful Rose”), Salve Regina (“Hail, Queen”) ... Perfect purity, wondrous beauty , the incomparable mercy of the Virgin is their lyrical theme.

Orthodox (Greek) hymns address the Mother of God in a different way: in the light of the dogma of the Incarnation of God the Word. They reflect on the part that belongs to Her in this greatest miracle, they contemplate the improbability of what happened. This cannot be accommodated by the human mind and everyday experience, which is constantly reminded by the hymns of the Mother of God (the motifs of “silence of the winds” and “bewilderment of the philosophers”) and about which, as one of these hymns says, “it would be safer to be silent.”

Laudatory chant is silence clothed in words, a kind of huge embroidery. The favorite rhetorical figure here is the combination of the incompatible, an oxymoron: "The bride is not the bride." The contemplation of singers and listeners is offered unimaginable things: a maiden becomes a mother, remaining a maiden; the female womb contains the One Whom the starry world and all creation cannot contain; a mortal, created human being gives birth to "endless life." The hymnographers seem to enjoy the multiplication of a series of "impossibles" that essentially follow from one naming: Mother of God.

We have already spoken more than once about the special intellectualism and "theoreticism" of Byzantine liturgical poetry. With this quality of hers, one can also associate the usual presence of Old Testament images in the Mother of God hymns, in which theologians see a prototype of the Mother of God: the Mother of God is a ladder that Patriarch Jacob saw, a jug of manna from the ancient Tabernacle of the Covenant, an altar, a burning bush, a passage through the Red Sea ... All this - examples of "what does not happen", miracles in which the "nature of the order" (natural law) is canceled.

A huge register of such symbolic similes contains an akathist "Choose Governor", sample and source of many liturgical texts. The Troparion of the Dormition, which we are talking about, does not include these Old Testament symbols.

His composition is transparent. The first two verses give parallel images of the connection of the incompatible: virgin birth - and death, which does not mean a complete break with the world. These two miracles are presented in one mode: preservation. "She kept her virginity" - "she did not leave the world." Storage, saving, cover - one of the main motives in the veneration of the Virgin. IN prayer addresses the hope resounds to Her that with Her help even the lost will not be lost. These two verses form, as it were, the theological introduction to the hymn.

The next four verses of the troparion develop its main theme: death - and life. The death of the Mother of God is not death, but a transition to life ( eternal life), to that new Life that She gave birth to while remaining a mortal being. The word "death" appears only in the last line, and does not refer to the death of the Mother of God, but to "us", more precisely, to "our souls", who, through her intercession, are saved from death. Her life after death not only does not stop, but becomes a source of life for "our souls."

The theme of the Court is connected with the theme of intercession, intercession, petition, "surety" of the Mother of God. At the Judgment of Christ, She acts as a lawyer, as a petitioner for pardon for the condemned. Here converge the Latin and Greek traditions of the hymnography of the Mother of God, with the difference of which we began. And in the Western tradition, She is first of all the Defender, the “lawyer” at the “righteous court”, the hope of those who have no other hope.

In the Holy Scriptures we meet one source of this thousand-year-old image of the “intercessor for the people before the Son”: the story of the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee. The sympathy of the Mother of God for people who did not have enough wine, and a request to the Son to correct this situation, become an impetus to the beginning of His miracle-working, to the first “appearance of glory”, to the beginning of His mission as the Savior. The Lord performs the first miracle at the request of the Mother (John 2:1-11).

Notes:
1 Wed about this in Pasternak's "Doctor Zhivago": "... a girl ... secretly and secretly gives life to a baby, gives birth to life, the miracle of life, the life of all," the Belly of all, "as it is later called. — Boris Pasternak. Collected works in five volumes. Volume three, Doctor Zhivago..M., Hudlit, 1990, p.460.

2 In general, theological intricacies remain "behind the scenes" of Western hymns to the Virgin. But there are exceptions. In the theological hymn to the Mother of God, which in the final song of the Divine Comedy is sung by Dante Bernard of Clairvaux, we hear a completely Byzantine rapture with dizzying "impossibility":
“Vergine Madre, figlia del tuo figlio… tu se'colei che l'umana natura Nobilitasti si, che 'l suo fattore Non disdegno di farsi sua fattura” - “Virgin Mother, daughter of her Son… You are the one in whom human nature is So ennobled that her Creator did not consider it unworthy to become her ( human nature) creation. (Par. XXXIII, 1-6).
The image of the “daughter of one’s own Son” echoes the ancient iconography of the Assumption, where Christ stands before the bed of the deceased Mother of God and holds her soul in the form of a little girl, exactly repeating the pose of the Mother of God holding the Child. In a clear way, the Mother returns to her original status - she is again a child of the Creator.

Priest Theodore LUDOGOVSKY, Olga SEDAKOVA

Troparion of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
(Holiday 8/ September 21)

Thy Nativity, Virgin Mother of God, / proclaim joy to the whole universe: / from Thee, the Sun of righteousness, Christ our God, has risen, / and breaking the oath, giving a blessing, / and abolishing death, granting us eternal life.

Troparion of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross
(Holiday 14/ September 27)

Save, O Lord, Thy people, and bless Thy inheritance, granting victory to the opposition, and Thy keeping Thy Cross living.

(Holiday November 21/ December 4)

Today is the prefiguration of the favor of God, / and the preaching of salvation to men, / the Virgin appears clearly in the temple of God, / and announces Christ to everyone. / That one and we will loudly cry out: // Rejoice at the sight of the Builder's fulfillment.

Troparion of the Nativity of Christ
(Holiday December 25/ Jan. 7)

Thy Nativity, Christ our God, / rise up the world's light of reason: / in it serve the stars, / I learn from the star, / bow down to the Sun of truth, / and lead Thee from the height of the East: // Lord, glory to Thee.

In Jordan, baptizing You, Lord, / Trinity worship appeared: / For the voice of your parents testifies to you, / calling your beloved Son, / and the Spirit in the form of a dove, / your word affirmation. / Appear to Christ God, // and enlighten the world, glory to Thee.

Rejoice, Blessed Virgin Mother of God, / from Thee rise the Sun of righteousness, Christ our God, / enlighten those who are in darkness. / Rejoice, you too, righteous elder, / received into the arms of the Liberator of our souls, / who grants us resurrection.

(Holiday March 25/April 7)

Today our salvation is the main thing, / and even from the age of the sacrament a manifestation, / the Son of God, the Son of the Virgin happens, / and Gabriel proclaims the goodness of the gospel, / the same and we with him will cry out to the Mother of God: / rejoice, full of grace, // the Lord is with you.

Common resurrection / before your passion assuring, / from the dead you raised Lazarus, Christ God. / The same is true of us, like the youths of the victories bearing signs, / We cry out to you, the Conqueror of death: / Hosanna in the highest, // blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.

Troparion of Easter

Christ is risen from the dead, trampling death upon death and bestowing life on those in the tombs

Troparion of the Ascension of the Lord

Thou hast ascended in glory, O Christ our God, / having created joy by the disciple / by the promise of the Holy Spirit, / by the former blessing announced to him, / as You are the Son of God, the Redeemer of the world.

Troparion of Pentecost.

Blessed art Thou, O Christ our God, / even wise fishermen, / sent down upon them the Holy Spirit, / and by them catch the universe, // Lover of mankind, glory to Thee.

Thou hast been transfigured on the mountain, O Christ God, / having shown Your disciples Your glory, / as if I could: / may Your everlasting light shine upon us sinners, / by the prayers of the Theotokos, // Giver of light, glory to Thee.

At Christmas you preserved your virginity, / in the Assumption of the world you did not leave, O Mother of God: / you reposed to your stomach, Mother of the Life, / and by your prayers you deliver our souls from death.

Troparion of the Twelfth Feasts (in the order of the church year beginning in September)

Your birth, Virgin Mary, announced the joy of the entire universe (to the entire inhabited world); for out of Thee has shone forth the Sun of righteousness, Christ our God; by removing the curse, He gave us a blessing, and by putting aside death, He gave us eternal life.

Save, O Lord, Your people and bless Your inheritance, granting victory over enemies and preserving Your people by the power of Your Cross.

Troparion of the Entry into the Church of the Most Holy Theotokos
(Holiday November 21/December 4)

Today is the day of God's favor (to us) and the foreshadowing of the salvation of people: the Virgin solemnly appears in the temple of God and announces to everyone about Christ. We cry out to Her at the top of our voices: Rejoice, fulfillment of the Creator's providence for us.

Your birth, Christ our God, illuminated the world with the light of the knowledge of God, for then those who served the stars as God were taught (were) by the star to worship You, the Sun of righteousness, and to know You, the East from on high. Lord, glory to You.

When You, Lord, were baptized in the Jordan, the worship (glorification) of the Holy Trinity was revealed: for the voice of the Parent testified of You, calling You the beloved Son, and the Spirit in the form of a dove confirmed the truth (of this) word. Christ the God who appeared in the world, glory to Thee.

Troparion of the Presentation of the Lord
(Holiday 2/15 February)

Rejoice, blessed Mother of God Virgin, for the Sun of righteousness has shone out of You - Christ our God, who enlightens those in darkness. Rejoice, O righteous old man, who has embraced the Redeemer of our souls, who grants us resurrection.

Troparion of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
(Holiday March 25/April 7)

Now is the beginning of our salvation and the discovery of the mystery that has been from the ages. The Son of God becomes the Son of the Virgin, and Gabriel proclaims grace. Therefore, we will exclaim to the Theotokos with him: Rejoice. Thank you, the Lord is with you.

Troparion of the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem
(Holiday a week before Easter)

You affirmed the common resurrection before Your suffering, You raised Lazarus from the dead, O Christ God. Therefore, we, as children (Jews), bearing the signs of victory, exclaim to You, the Conqueror of death: salvation from heaven, blessed is He who walks in the name of the Lord.

Troparion of Easter
(Easter occurs between March 22 and April 25, and is celebrated on the nearest Sunday after the spring full moon)

Christ rose from the dead, having struck (by His) death death and bestowing life on those in the tombs.

Troparion of the Ascension of the Lord
(Holiday 40 days after Easter)

Christ our God! You ascended in glory, filling Your disciples with joy through the promise of the Holy Spirit to them, and assured them with Your blessing that You are the Son of God, the Redeemer of the world.

Troparion of Pentecost.
(Holiday 50 days after Easter)

Blessed are You, Christ our God, who revealed wise fishers (in the apostles), sending down the Holy Spirit to them, and by them catching the universe. Glory to Thee, Humanitarian.

Christ God, You were transfigured on the mountain, showing Your disciples Your glory, as far as they could (see it). Through the prayers of the Mother of God, may Your eternal light shine upon us sinners. Giver of light, glory to Thee.

Mother of God! You kept virginity at birth, You did not leave the world after your Assumption (Your); You have passed to eternal life, being the Mother of Life (Our Lord Jesus Christ), and with Your prayers you deliver our souls from death.

In Christmas you preserved virginity, / in the Dormition of the world you did not leave, O Mother of God, / you reposed to the stomach, Mother of the Life of the Life: / and with your prayers you deliver our souls from death.

At the Nativity of Christ, You preserved virginity, at Your Assumption, You did not leave the world, Mother of God: You passed to life, since You are the Mother of Life, and with Your prayers You deliver our souls from death.

Kontakion, tone 2

In the prayers of the Unsleeping Mother of God, / and in the immutable intercession / The hope of the coffin and the mortification cannot be held back: / as if the Mother’s Belly to the stomach / leave in the womb of the Indwelling / ever-virgin.

In prayers, the unsleeping Mother of God and the immutably reliable Intercessor, the coffin and death did not hold back: You, as the Mother of Life, were moved to life by the One who settled in Your ever-virgin womb.

magnificence

We magnify Thee, / Immaculate / Mother of Christ our God, / and glorify the all-glorious / / Your Assumption.

Prayer

O Most Holy Theotokos, Virgin, Lady, the highest angel and archangel, and the most honest of all creatures, angelic great surprise, prophetic lofty sermon, apostolic glorious praise, pretty adornment of saints, strong affirmation of martyrs, saving instruction of monks, fasting abstinence, virgin purity and word , quiet joy of mothers, babies of wisdom and punishment, widows and orphans to the nurse, naked robes, sick health, captives deliverance, floating on the sea quietly, overwhelmed by a calm haven, wandering an easy mentor, traveling an easy transition, laboring a good rest, in troubles existing an ambulance Intercessor , offended cover and refuge, hopeless hope, requiring an assistant, the poor inexhaustible wealth, sad everlasting consolation, hated loving humility, sinners salvation and appropriation to God, the faithful of all a firm fence, invincible help and intercession. By you, the Lady, we see the invisible, and we offer you a prayer, Madam, your sinful servants: O merciful and wonderful light of the intelligent Queen, who gave birth to the King Christ our God, the Life-Giver of all, glorified from heaven and praised from earth: an angelic mind, a luminous star most holy, the Queen of queens, the mistress of all creatures, the Divine Virgin, the undefiled Bride, the chamber of the Holy Spirit, the fiery throne of the invisible King, the heavenly bow, carried the Word of God, the fiery chariot, the rest of the living God, the ineffable composition of the Flesh of Christ: the nest of the Eagle of Heaven, the turtledove God-voiced, meek dove, quiet and gentle, mother-loving, merciful abyss, opening up a cloud of God's wrath, immeasurable depth, inexpressible secretly, an unknown miracle, not made by hands in the church of the one King of all ages, fragrant censer, honest purple, Ornate porphyro, spiritual paradise, life-giving garden the branch, the beautiful flower, the heavenly joy that flourished for us, the storm of our salvation, the cup of the King of Heaven, in it dissolve the wine of inexhaustible grace from the Holy Spirit, the Intercessor of the law, the conception of the true faith of Christ, the unshakable pillar, heretics perniciously, the sword of God's wrath against the God-opposing, demons intimidation , in battles, victory, Christians of all unfalse custodian, and the salvation of the whole world is known. O all-merciful Lady, Virgin, Lady, Mother of God, hear us praying to You and show Your mercy on Your people, pray to Your Son to deliver us from all evil, and save our monastery, and every monastery, and city, and the country of the faithful, and people piously resorting and calling your name holy, from every misfortune, destruction, famine, flood, fire, sword, invasion of foreigners, internecine strife, from every disease, and every circumstance: yes, neither by wounds, nor rebuke, nor pestilence, nor any righteous wrath of God, Thy servants will be diminished: but observe and save by Your mercy, Madam, praying for us, and grant us a useful goodness of air at the time of the fruitful offering: make it easier, restore and have mercy, having mercy on the Lady, the Mother of God, in every misfortune and need of the being. Remember Thy servants, and do not despise our tears and sighs and renew us with the goodness of Your mercy, so that with thanksgiving we are comforted by having found Thee Helper. Have mercy, the Most Pure Lady, on Your weak people, our hope: gather the scattered ones, guide those who have gone astray on the right path, return the packs of those who have fallen away from the pious fatherly faith, support old age, punish the young, raise babies, and glorify the glorifying You, rather observe the Church of Your Son , and store in the longitude of days. O merciful and merciful Queen of heaven and earth, Mother of God Ever-Virgin! Through Your intercession, have mercy on our country and its Christ-loving inhabitants, and all Orthodox Christians, keeping them under the cover of Your mercy, protect them with Your honest robe: and pray from You, incarnated without the seed of Christ our God, may gird us from above with power on all our visible and invisible enemies , against foreigners and fellow tribesmen who are fighting against us and against our Orthodox faith. Save and have mercy, Madam, most holy patriarchs, metropolitans, archbishops and bishops of the Orthodox, priests and deacons, and all the parish of the church, and all the faithful people bowing and praying before your honest icon. Look upon all with the contemplation of Your merciful intercession: Raise us up from the depths of sin, and enlighten the eyes of the heart with the vision of salvation, be merciful to us here, and at the terrible judgment of Your Son, beg for us, reposed in piety from the life of this life of Your servant, in eternal life with Angels and Archangels, and with all the saints, may they appear at the right hand of Your Son and God: and by Your prayer, make all Orthodox Christians live with Christ, and enjoy the joys of angels in heavenly villages. Thou art, Mistress, the glory of heaven and the hope of the earth, You are our hope, and the intercessor of all those who flow to You, and Your holy help for those who ask: You are our warm prayer house to Your Son and our God: Your motherly prayer can do a lot for the supplication of the Lord, and By your intercession to the throne of grace of the Most Holy and Life-Giving Mysteries, we dare to approach even unworthy. The same is Your all-honorable image, and seeing the Almighty held by Your hand on the icon, we rejoice in sinners, falling down with tenderness, and with this love we kiss, hoping, Madam, with Your holy God-pleasing prayers to reach heavenly endless life, and shamefully stand on the day of judgment at the right hand of Your Son and God ours, glorifying Him together with the Beginningless Father, and the Most Holy, Good, Life-Giving and Consubstantial Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.

- because she seemed to fall asleep, she did not die. The word "died" cannot be applied to She Who was the Mother of the Source of life, the Mother of the Son of God.
The word “death” cannot be used here in the sense of the end, the end of earthly life, because “In the Nativity you kept your virginity, you didn’t leave the world, Mother of God” . She did not leave the world, and if she did not leave, then Her life on earth did not end. It's unfathomable, but it's true.
What Her Eternal Son said was fulfilled in Her in the highest degree: Whoever believes in me will never see death.
When blessed Andrew, for the sake of Christ, the holy fool, was in heavenly cloisters, then he saw many saints there, saw angelic ranks, but did not see the Mother of God. "And where," he asked, "is the Mother of God?" “But She,” they say, “is not here. She's on the ground."
Indeed, She walks the earth. On the Pochaevskaya mountain there is even a trace of Her foot, from where the Pochaevsky spring flows. The Mother of God “has not left the world”.
Therefore, the word “Assumption” in its entirety testifies to what happened. The Mother of God, as it were, rested - and soon woke up ... She fell asleep, as it were, in the body in which She lived on earth, and woke up already in a transfigured body, in a resurrected one.
Such is the special favor of God towards the Mother of God. And this is primarily for Her greatest and incomprehensible humility: Like a contemplation of the humility of His Servant, behold, from now on, all will give birth to Me.
And at the moment when She said this, the human race in the face of the righteous Elizabeth was already pleasing Her: Where can I get this, but the Mother of my Lord come to me. Behold, as if it were the voice of Your kissing in my ear, the baby leaped with joy in my womb. John the Baptist glorifies Her coming with joy, and the righteous Elizabeth has already blessed Her coming. And later, a certain wife says: Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that fed you.
And after the Resurrection of Christ, the whole world was already glorifying the Mother of God.
Our Orthodox faith especially glorifies the Mother of God. And any deviation from the true faith, the Orthodox faith, consists primarily in moving away from the veneration of the Mother of God and the Holy Cross of the Lord.

Fasting in front of the holy fathers was established in the likeness of Great Lent - it is the same in severity, because great post precedes the sufferings on the cross, the sacrifice of the cross and the resurrection of Christ our God, and the Dormition Fast also precedes the resurrection of the Mother of God.
The Dormition Fast begins with the removal of the cross, and ends with the rite of burial, which, as it were, marks Great Friday of Great Lent, followed by the resurrection.
A sense of proportion, a sense of fullness in veneration of the Mother of God only in Orthodox faith where She occupies the first, highest and most worthy place after Jesus Christ, the Son of God. She is above all creation, all creation. But Orthodox Church rejects the Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Holy Theotokos.
The intercession of the Mother of God for people is based on incomprehensible Divine love. The Mother of God has that fullness of love that only a person can have.
And many of the icons revealed by Her here on earth have the name precisely the expression of this inexpressible love: “The Zealous Intercessor of the Christian Kind”, “Joy of All Who Sorrow”, “Search for the Lost”, “Guest of Sinners”, “ Unexpected Joy”, “Merciful”, “Rescue of the drowning”, “Satisfaction in sorrows”.
And the feast of Her Assumption bears in itself some special stamp of silence, love, sadness that glows. The light of this feast is the hymn that is sung at the end of the canon, crowning the entire canon with its melody, its content, expressing a special silence, a special peace. The rest about which the Lord Jesus Christ said: Learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls..

On this day, everything calms down in nature, and the earth bears its fruits, and the human soul is in peace and joy.
And we must try from year to year, from holiday to holiday, to preserve this state of mind, which is given to us on this bright, joyful day.
Let us often turn to the Mother of God, Who has not left the world, and She, Our Intercessor, is so merciful that, according to the tradition of the holy fathers, the last intercession for us, which will be on the Last Judgment, is the intercession of the Mother of God.
One servant of God, who had been ill with a serious illness for many years, went through ordeals during her lifetime in a vision. And when she felt that it was impossible to pass through them and that the regiments of demons were already closing in on her, they would no longer let her through to the gates of the Kingdom of Heaven, she cried out: “Mother of God! Save!” - and immediately all the evil spirits receded from her.
There is a story about how the soul of one person was carried by angels to the gates of the Kingdom of Heaven, and unclean spirits approached it, convicting it of many sins. Their last accusation, against which this soul could no longer object, was that it had renounced God! And this soul remembered that she thoughtlessly once said: “Maybe there is nothing…” The angels could no longer protect this soul. And all the prayers were powerless to protect from this evil, and only with the cry of the soul: “Mother of God! Zealous intercessor!” - all the evil spirits flew away, the demonic chase was left behind.
These examples show how omnipotent and omnipotent the intercession of the Mother of God is.
Let us often turn in our prayers to the Mother of God. She, like small children, loves us and pampers us.

“In the Nativity you preserved virginity, in the Assumption of the world you did not leave, O Mother of God, you reposed to your stomach, Mother of the life of the Life, and with your prayers you deliver our souls from death.”