Juniper Carol explicitly states that the Transitus literature is a complete fabrication which should be rejected by any serious historian:
"The account of Pseudo-Melito, like the rest of the Transitus literature, is admittedly valueless as history, as an historical report of Mary’s death and corporeal assumption; under that aspect the historian is justified in dismissing it with a critical distaste" (Juniper Carol, O.F.M. ed., Mariology, Vol. l (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1957), p. 150).
History proves that when the Transitus teaching originated the Church regarded it as heresy. In 494 to 496 A.D. Pope Gelasius issued a decree entitled Decretum de Libris Canonicis Ecclesiasticis et Apocryphis.
In the list of apocryphal writings which are to be rejected Gelasius signifies the following work: Liber qui apellatur Transitus, id est Assumptio Sanctae Mariae, Apocryphus (Pope Gelasius 1, Epistle 42, Migne Series, M.P.L. vol. 59, Col. 162). This specifically means the Transitus writing of the assumption of Mary. At the end of the decree he states that this and all the other listed literature is heretical and that their authors and teachings and all who adhere to them are condemned and placed under eternal anathema which is indissoluble. And he places the Transitus literature in the same category as the heretics and writings of Arius, Simon Magus, Marcion, Apollinaris, Valentinus and Pelagius.
Pope Gelasius explicitly condemns the authors as well as their writings and the teachings which they promote and all who follow them. And significantly, this entire decree and its condemnation was reaffirmed by Pope Hormisdas in the sixth century around A.D. 520.
Prior to the seventh and eighth centuries there is complete patristic silence on the doctrine of the Assumption. But gradually, through the influence of numerous forgeries which were believed to be genuine, coupled with the misguided enthusiasm of popular devotion, the doctrine gained a foothold in the Church. The Dictionary of Christian Antiquities gives the following history of the doctrine:
In the 3rd of 4th century there was composed a book, embodying the Gnostic and Collyridian traditions as to the death of Mary, called De Transitu Virginis Mariae Liber. This book exists still and may be found in the Bibliotheca Patrum Maxima (tom. ii. pt. ii. p. 212)....The Liber Transitu Mariae contains already the whole of the story of the Assumption. But down to the end of the 5th century this story was regarded by the Church as a Gnostic or Collyridian fable, and the Liber de Transitu was condemned as heretical by the Decretum de Libris Canonicis Ecclesiasticus et Apocryphis, attributed to pope Gelasius, A.D. 494. How then did it pass across the borders and establish itself within the church, so as to have a festival appointed to commemorate it? In the following manner:
In the sixth century a great change passed over the sentiments and the theology of the church in reference to the Theotokos—an unintended but very noticeable result of the Nestorian controversies, which in maintaining the true doctrine of the Incarnation incidentally gave strong impulse to what became the worship of Mary.
http://www.christiantruth.com/articles/assumption.html
Orthodox Christians will care very little about what modern Roman Catholic writers say about Holy Tradition, even less about what Hormisdas wrote. Gelasius rightly called the book apocryphal and no one, at least no one I have ever heard of, says that it is reliable history. It is clearly not heretical however and if in fact Gelasius thought it was, today he would be excommunicated as a heretic in his own city for not subscribing to the story it contains.
The belief in the Assumption of the Theotokos, for 300 million Orthodox Christians and about 60 million Anglicans is theologoumenon, a pious belief which no Christian is compelled to accept, nothing more, nothing less. For 1 billion Roman Catholics, it is a mandatory belief. That some modern Western Christians think that the Holy Tradition surrounding the Assumption shouldn’t be believed because it isn’t found in the canon of scripture The Church gave them is an opinion, which, truth be told, makes no difference at all to the overwhelming Christians of Christians in the world.
BTW, the last line of your post just destroys whatever credibility the preceding lines may have had. No Orthodox or Latin or Oriental Orthodox Christian “worships” the Most Holy Theotokos. There is even a declaration of an ecumenical council to the effect that worship is reserved only to God.
Very interesting. What is certain is that the Early Church was silent on the subject.
Gelatius' rejection is a forgery.