Dormition of the Theotokos

The Dormition of the Theotokos, on 15 August, is the great Marian feast of the Christian East, corresponding to what the West calls the Assumption. The word Dormition means "falling asleep", and the Eastern tradition is explicit where the Roman definition is reserved: its hymns and icons narrate Mary's death, the gathering of the apostles, her burial, and the finding of her tomb empty, understanding that she was taken bodily to her Son. The classic icon shows Christ receiving her soul as an infant in swaddling bands while her body lies on the bier.

The feast is prepared by a strict two-week fast (1-14 August), one of the four fasting seasons of the Orthodox year, second in solemnity only to Great Lent, and in the Greek tradition the Paraklesis service of supplication to the Theotokos is sung through it. The Eastern churches have generally not adopted the Western dogmatic definition of the Assumption, keeping the event in the register of liturgy and tradition rather than defined dogma; this restraint is itself often cited as characteristic of the difference in temper between the two.

In Greece, 15 August functions as both the country's most important religious feast of the summer and one of its largest annual domestic travel days, comparable in practical effect to a national bank holiday concentrated on a single date: businesses across much of the country close, ferries and roads to island and coastal destinations are at their busiest of the year, and many Greeks travel to their family village or island of origin specifically to attend the Dormition liturgy at a local church or, in some cases, a major regional pilgrimage site, most notably the church of the Panagia Evangelistria on the island of Tinos, which draws large national pilgrimage crowds, including some pilgrims who traditionally crawl from the port to the church as an act of devotion.

This combination of intense religious observance and mass domestic tourism movement makes the day a significant logistical event for Greek transport authorities and businesses each year, a civic and economic dimension of the feast that has no real equivalent in most Western countries keeping the corresponding Assumption feast on the same date, where 15 August, though often a public holiday, does not generally coincide with anything like the same scale of nationwide travel and pilgrimage activity.