The word sleep is used in ecclesiastical language as denoting death
The month of August is also known as the month of the Virgin because on its fifteenth day the Dormition of the Virgin is celebrated with splendor. Our Greek Orthodox nation and its armed forces honor the Mother of God as a Heroic General.
On August 15, the Dormition of the Virgin is celebrated with splendor. That is, the day on which Our Lady left this life as a human being and was buried in Gethsemane by the Holy Apostles.
The word sleep is used in ecclesiastical language as denoting death, not only for the saints but for every Christian. Because, according to the Christian teaching founded on the Resurrection of Christ, death has been defeated and has no power over people…
So if these are true for every believer, they are much more true for the Mother of God, whose Dormition is called in hymnology a migration, i.e. moving from one place to another. And really, as the hymn writer characteristically mentions, he moved towards life, the existing mother of life.
That is, she moved to true life, close to her Son, because she who gave birth to life could not remain in death. This fact was historically verified by not finding the body of the Virgin Mary in the tomb…”
“Our Greek Orthodox nation and its armed forces honor the Mother of God as a Heroic General because she proved to be our protector and savior on countless occasions. The well-known stock of the Akathistos Hymn as well as a number of tributes to images of the Virgin… are irrefutable witnesses to this fact.
It is especially worth emphasizing that this banner of the revolution, which was raised in Agia Lavra in 1821, was nothing more than an embroidered image of the Assumption of the Virgin. To declare surely that as that Dormition foretold true life so the enslaved nation would gain its freedom…”
