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The Dormition of the Virgin

Celebrated on the 15th of August in the East since the 6th century, the Dormition is one of the twelve major feasts of the Orthodox liturgical year.

For Orthodox Christians, the body of the Virgin Mary, who was conceived without sin and gave birth to Christ, could not have been corrupted by death. The risen Christ, who has come to gather up his mother’s soul in his arms, is standing behind the bed on which she is sleeping.

In Greek and Balkan painting, he is always depicted at the same level as the apostles surrounding the Virgin as a visual representation of the theology of God made man.