The Dormition, the word means falling asleep, keeps the end of the earthly life of the Virgin Mary. The Church holds that she died as all people die, but that her Son received her soul and raised her body to be with Him, the first of the redeemed to share fully in the life of the age to come. In her, the promise of the Resurrection is already kept.
The feast is a quiet triumph over the fear of death. She who bore Life in her womb does not meet death as an enemy but falls asleep in peace, and is awakened. The Church looks to her not as a rival to Christ but as the first and greatest of those saved by Him, the sign of what redemption finally means for every human person.
The Dormition falls on August 15 and is preceded by a two-week fast, the Dormition Fast, so that the faithful prepare for her feast as they would for the Lord's own. It closes the church year, which will begin again in September, and so the whole cycle ends in hope.