Archaeology of the Dormitio Mariae: Assumption

Archaeology of the Dormition of Mary and the dogma of the Assumption

As for the places of the Dormition of Mary, they are identified with the present Church of the Tomb of the Virgin, which is nothing other than the crypt of the church of the Crusader monastery of Saint Mary of Jehoshaphat, now destroyed. This crypt has a beautiful external portal and a stairway six meters wide, made up of more than forty steps and covered by a vaulted ceiling. To the right and to the left of the stairway open two chapels that contain the tombs of the Queens of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and that today are venerated as the tombs of Saint Joseph, Saint Joachim, and Saint Anne. The tomb of the Virgin properly so called is a block of stone, isolated from the rock bench, between one meter fifty and one meter eighty in height. It has two openings that serve as a passage for pilgrims. The rock on which the Virgin was laid is protected by a glass, for it has been worn away by the centuries and by the devotion of the faithful who, out of devotion, took brandea from it, that is, small fragments. The opening in the ceiling of the grotto serves to vent the smoke of the candles and the lamps, but it also has the symbolic meaning of an opening toward heaven, to which the Virgin was assumed.

The ancient documents agree in describing the tomb of the Virgin as new and situated near Gethsemane. They diverge, however, in identifying the place from which the funeral procession set out. For the documents of the second and third centuries, of Jewish-Christian origin, the Virgin would have fallen asleep in her house, situated near Jerusalem, in the area of the Valley of Jehoshaphat called Magdalia. The Johannine texts of the fourth and fifth centuries have the Marian Transitus take place in the house of John’s relatives, on the Mount of Olives, where the Mother of God was staying. Finally, the Byzantine documents of the fifth century and later place the death of the Virgin on Mount Zion. The hypothesis that the Virgin lived and fell asleep on Mount Zion has recently found a defender in Bargil Pixner.

The South Tyrolean archaeologist pointed out that, beneath the present Basilica of the Dormition, built in 1898, there were found the foundations of Saint Mary of Zion of the Teutons, the mosaic of the atrium of the Byzantine basilica of Hagia Sion, a burial site earlier than A.D. 70, corresponding to the House of Mary in the Chalcedonian documents and, in 1983, a road, also earlier than A.D. 70, cut into the rock and running from north to south, twenty meters west of the Dormition, along which stood very simple houses of rough stone, among which one, on the eastern side, had a Jewish ritual bath with a half-column raised in the center. Given the presence of Christians on Mount Zion, Pixner believes that the house in question is the Virgin’s, for in the Chalcedonian sources we read the report, without doubt authentic, since it is rooted in Jewish tradition, that the Mother of God took a purifying bath after the revelation of the day of her transitus.

The restoration work on the traditional tomb of the Virgin, carried out in 1972, allowed an inspection of the space, which proved to conform to the description of the most ancient texts and therefore authentic, dating from the first century. The tomb is a cave of stone and a sepulchre hewn in the rock, as described by the eyewitnesses cited in the sources. The rock bench lay beneath the arcosolium. The tomb belongs to a funerary complex whose remains are found on a higher level, beyond the north wall of the present Byzantine church: it is a first-century chamber, the kokhim, two meters forty above the level of the present church, which must have been preceded by a vast atrium to the west, open toward the Kidron, with access stairs on the sides, whose remains are visible both to the north and to the south. The literary description and the archaeological finds conform to other funerary complexes of that valley and of the same period, such as the Tomb of the family of Ben Hazir, called the Tomb of Zechariah or of Saint James, and the monumental Tomb of the Kings, also known as that of Helena of Adiabene.

The Marian complex remained intact until Theodosius isolated the tomb of the Theotokos, freeing it from the other tombs and placing it at the center of the cross-shaped Byzantine church. The building, taken from the Ebionites, was administered by the Johannites, who purified the texts on the Dormition belonging to the cycle of Leucius and modified the commemorative funeral rites, performing them in part on the Mount of Olives, precisely in the area of the mount called Galilee. Here, in 1889, a mosaic pavement of a funerary chapel was found, identified with the shrine dedicated to the Angel who appeared to Mary to announce to her the imminent Dormition and to hand her the palm to be carried before her bier. This chapel is of the fifth century. At the same site, a distinctive church in the Eastern style was found, also founded in the fifth century and lasting until the Middle Ages, probably the house of John’s relatives, where the Mother of Christ is said to have fallen asleep.

The Christians held services at that place before going down to Gethsemane to celebrate the Dormition. There were, therefore, three places of worship: the sepulchral Basilica, the Church of the Dormition, and the Shrine of the Angel. In 453, the Basilica and its dependencies passed to the Chalcedonians by the will of Archbishop Juvenal, who instituted locally the Solemnity of the Assumption, later extended to the whole Church by the emperor Maurice (582-602), who built over the Theodosian rock-cut church a second basilica of great beauty, circular in form, unfortunately destroyed by the Persians in the fateful year 614. Only the burial crypt survived, over which the Benedictines, between 1112 and 1130, built the Crusader church already mentioned, with the adjoining monastery of Saint Mary of Jehoshaphat. The monks gave the ancient crypt a new entrance. However, the Crusader church was destroyed by Saladin after 1187, sparing only the crypt in honor of the “Blessed Mother of the prophet Jesus.”

In sum, in my view, the most probable place where the Virgin lived after the Resurrection of Jesus was, without doubt, Magdala, because the most ancient sources attest to that place. The archaeological evidence has never been sought, but it is not indispensable. This does not exclude the possibility that the Virgin also lived in other places in Jerusalem, hosted by different friends, especially since the existence of a Christian quarter next to the Essene one in the city does not mean that the Christians could not have been spread over other sites, perhaps by reason of their social origins and of the choice, or not, to adhere to the monastic form of life led in common in the earliest times.

The presence of a ritual bath in a house on Zion does not necessarily make it the Virgin’s, but it cannot be excluded that Mary had a dwelling, quite spare, among the baptized who chose to live in community, a short distance from the Cenacle, and that she could therefore perform the prescribed ablutions. The location of the house of John’s Relatives on the Mount of Olives seems more solid. There the Mother of God could have spent some periods of the last phase of her life and also had the visions described in the apocryphal texts before her Dormition. However, the Transitus took place in Magdala. From there the funeral procession set out for the tomb, whose location, as we have seen, is beyond doubt. It may be deduced that the Virgin moved among various houses of friends, which is normal for a widow without her only Son, but surrounded by a solid family clan and a close circle of friends, united by the profession of a Faith born among them.

I do not consider well founded the opinion of those who place the Dormition of the Virgin at Ephesus. Although it cannot be excluded that, in an early phase of his apostolate in Asia Minor, John took the Virgin Mary with him, perhaps to protect her from the dangers of the first persecution of 42, ordered by Herod Agrippa, and that, therefore, the House dedicated to Her in the Greek metropolis (the Meryem Ana), dated to the first century, may really have sheltered her, despite the silence of the ancient Fathers about this and the explicit denial of the presence of the Mother of God at Ephesus made by Epiphanius, it is absolutely beyond doubt that the Dormition took place in Jerusalem, presumably during the period of the Council of Jerusalem (48) and, at the latest, up to about 50. These dates make it possible to contextualize the presence of all the Apostles at the Marian Transitus, as the assumptionist documents attest.

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To go deeper into the Catholic doctrine on the Assumption of Mary, see the Encyclical Redemptoris Mater of Pope John Paul II.

See also: The 4 Marian Dogmas: what they are and what the Church defines