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Assumption of Mary August 15 Holy Day of Obligation |
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Assumption of the Virgin (Latin assumere, "to take up") in the Roman Catholic church and the Orthodox church is the doctrine that after her death the body of Mary, the mother of Christ, was taken into heaven and reunited with her soul. Defined as an article of faith by Pope Pius XII in 1950, the assumption was first commemorated as the Feast of the Dormition (falling asleep) of Mary in the 4th century. This feast later developed into the Feast of the Assumption, now celebrated in the Roman Catholic church on August 15 every year.1
St. Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, at the Council of Chalcedon (451), made known to the Emperor Marcian and Pulcheria, who wished to possess the body of the Mother of God, that Mary died in the presence of all the Apostles, but that her tomb, when opened, upon the request of St. Thomas, was found empty; wherefrom the Apostles concluded that the body was taken up to heaven. 2
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