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To: Dr. Eckleburg; Agrarian; Full Court; HarleyD; Forest Keeper; qua; 1000 silverlings; blue-duncan; ...
As unScriptural as Mary's perpetual virginity is, the RC contention that she lacked Original Sin and rose bodily into heaven are truly mystifying and border on blasphemy, IMO

You recently thanked Agrarian on showing you the difference between Orthodox and Latin Mariology. Agrarian nailed the differences exceedingly well. But he failed to mention to you (because it wasn't pertinent) that the Orthodox held far longer than our Catholic brethren that the Theotokos was assumed into heaven, body and soul. The difference in that respect is that some Roman Catholics believe she never died, which the Orthodox Church never proclaimed for all the good reasons outlined by Agrarian previously.

5,830 posted on 05/06/2006 9:40:22 PM PDT by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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To: kosta50; Dr. Eckleburg

Kosta is absolutely right that most Orthodox believe that Mary's body was taken up into heaven (*after* her death and burial.) There is an entire story about St. Thomas not being at her death and burial, and then going to her tomb, only to find it empty, and seeing in a vision that she was assumed into heaven, etc... I personally accept this general story as reflecting the consensus tradition of the Orthodox Church.

What is interesting is that the liturgical services of the Orthodox Church are *very* ambiguous on this point. If you read the texts for the services of the Dormition, I'm not sure that one would come away knowing that we believe in her being taken up into heaven in the body.

I seem to remember writing a lengthy post on this sometime in the distant past, quoting the relevant portions of the services. The emphasis in the services is that she died and that her soul was taken to heaven. There are a couple of oblique references to her body -- if I have time, I'll look them up.

It is perfectly acceptable for an Orthodox Christian not to believe that she was assumed bodily into heaven after her death (as with so many things, we don't dogmatize a whole lot -- and if something isn't clear in what we pray it is probably not a dogma.) I personally believe that she was, but there are people I respect who doubt the veracity of that particular part of the tradition, and their arguments are legitimate.

I don't see how the Orthodox version of this -- namely that Christ did not want his mother's body to suffer corruption and decay, and also wanted to give to the world a foretaste of the resurrection awaiting us ordinary mortal Christians (just as Mary was an ordinary mortal Christian) -- is blasphemous in any way.

Enoch and Elijah were taken up into heaven bodily without death (although we in the Orthodox Church believe that they will return as the two witnesses, and *then* be killed at the end of time.

As to a body being taken up into heaven after death, we have the witness from the Epistle of St. Jude, where the Archangel Michael and Satan are disputing over the body of Moses. Why dispute over his body if not for the reason of taking it up to heaven? Just as no man ever found Moses' body or grave according to the Scriptures, so also no-one has ever identified a grave or any relices of the Theotokos. For someone of her importance to the Church, one would expect that this would not be the case.

The two who appeared to the disciples on Mt. Tabor were Moses and Elijah -- besides the obvious summary of law and prophets, I find it interesting that in both cases, something unusual happened to their bodies. The one was assumed into heaven without dying, and with Moses, I don't know exactly what happened, but between what Deuteronomy says and Jude says, it wasn't the ordinary, run-of-the-mill thing...


5,852 posted on 05/07/2006 5:51:32 PM PDT by Agrarian
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