Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index The Blessed Virgin Mary's body went to Heaven along with her soul after her death, according to an ancient and widely accepted tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. Having been a tradition for centuries, this doctrine was formally dogmatically defined by Pope Pius XII in 1950, an irrelevant gesture to the Eastern Orthodox, who do not recognize the pope's claim to authority over all Christians, nor his claim to infallibility The ascension of Mary's body into heaven is called the Assumption of Mary by Catholics and the Dormition of the Theotokos by the Greek Orthodox Church. Both churches commemorate the event on August 15; in the Roman Catholic Church, that date is known as the Feast of the Assumption, while in the Eastern Orthodox Church it is known as the Feast of the Dormition (which means "falling asleep"). It should be noted that the Orthodox use of Dormition emphasizes the belief that Mary did bodily die before her Assumption. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.