The Origins of the Dormitian Traditions

The story of mary's dormision found its first written narrative o expression among those communities of syria and palestine in the late fifth century. The only relics people say ist are things like her clothes, not her bones, because her body is nowhere on the earth. Since her body had been miraculously removed either to some hidden place or, together with her soul, into paradise, there were no relics tying her cult to a particular place. Thus these legends effectively prevented her cult from becoming linked with a particular region, as were many other cults,. enabling her to become an important locust of ecumenical and imperial christian identity.