Feast of the Sunoyo (Dormition) of the Theotokos

“At the Assumption this fullness of deification – this purity and inner glory of soul- was made outwardly manifest in her body, which was received into heaven: that is to say (for heaven is not a geographical area), her body was made fully ‘spiritual’. Man, so the Bible teaches, is not a soul imprisoned in a body, but a unity of body and soul; the body is to be redeemed and deified as well as the soul. All Christian saints, therefore, await the resurrection from the dead, when their bodies will rise again, transfigured and glorified. What has happened in our Lady’s case is simply this: because of her outstanding purity and holiness, this bodily resurrection has been anticipated. By God’s special decree she had passed beyond death and judgment and lives already in the age to come, thus constituting (with her Son) the first fruits of the transfigured creation. Yet she is not separate by her Assumption for the rest of the human race, for every Christian, by virtue of his baptism, lives already in some degree in the age to come; and that same bodily glory with the Mother of God already enjoys, all of us hope one day to share.”

Metropolitan Kallistos Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Ethos: Studies in Orthodoxy, Vol. 1, p. 148.