From The Icon: Window on the Kingdom

by Michel Quenot

Tradition tells us that all of the apostles gathered together around Mary at the end of her life and that Christ himself came to take both her soul and body up to heaven.  The icon of the feast offers a contemplative reading of the liturgy for this feast.

Neither death nor grave could retain the Mother of God who is always vigilant in her intercession for us, and who is our steadfast hope: Mother of Life, she  was transported into eternal life by the Son who was formed in her virginal womb [Kontakion of the Feast].

The close relationship between the Mother and her Child, so apparent in almost every icon of the Theotokos carrying Christ in her arms, is, interestingly, reversed in this icon.  Her Son, the New Adam, appears in glory surrounded by angels.  He holds his Mother in his arms, i.e., her soul which contains her "spiritualized" body.  The New Eve whom the Apocalypse describes as "adorned with the sun" [Apoc 12.6] precedes us in her deification, a vivid reminder of those beautiful words of Saint Athanasius of Alexandria: "God became 'sarcophore' - bearer of our flesh - so that mankind might become 'pneumatophore' - bearer of the Holy Spirit."  One might say that the apotheosis of mankind is confirmed here, since both the Resurrection and the Transfiguration, which represent the two theophanic poles of Christianity, find the fulllness of their realization in the wondrous mystery: the Dormition of the Mother of God.