The Dormition of St. Anne

[aquinas138]

In the Byzantine rite, today (July 25) is the feast of the Dormition (Falling-Asleep) of St. Anne, the mother of Our Lady. The Byzantine tradition is that she died at age 79, when the Theotokos was still a child. This is the icon of the feast:



The young Mary is near her mother's feet in a posture of prayer; an angel is taking the soul of the righteous Anna to heaven. Souls are iconographically depicted as babies in swaddling clothes, a symbol of innocence.

Troparion, Tone 4: Divinely-wise Anna, you carried in your womb the pure Mother of God, who gave life to our Life. * Therefore, you are now carried joyfully to the inheritance of heaven, * to the abode of those who rejoice in glory, * where you seek forgiveness of sins for those who faithfully honor you, ever blessed one.

Kontakion, Tone 2: We celebrate the memory of the progenitors of Christ, * and with faith we ask their help, * that deliverance from every affliction be granted to those who cry out: * "Be with us, O God, who in Your good pleasure glorified them."

[Gardener]

Beautiful icon and words...

Question:
Does the East not believe that the gates of Heaven were closed until the Resurrection?

[PerEvangelicaDicta]

Today is the birthday of my oldest brother, fwiw a ret. naval commander, and the finest of men.
Your post, aquinas138, will be an email birthday gift to him this day.
(at midnight, I texted a youtube a capella "Happy Birthday" to greet him this morning 

If I hadn't moved from novus ordo to tradition, I would have missed the privilege of learning/appreciating the intangible power of icons. They pierce and transform the soul.

[Obrien]

Sincerely, I pose this as a genuine question, not to argue.

If tradition teaches that St. Anne died at 79 then wouldn't she have lived through most of Christ's life on earth. Here is my logic:
St. Anne and St. Joachim were probably married when St. Anne was 14 or 15 according to the tradition of the time. If I recall,  it was 20 years into their marriage before Mary was born. And Mary was 15 when Jesus was born therefor making St. Anne 50 at the time. And if tradition teaches St. Anne was 79 when she died that would make her present in Jesus' life until he was 29 right before He started His public ministry.

[aquinas138]

Beautiful icon and words...

Question:
Does the East not believe that the gates of Heaven were closed until the Resurrection?

The East is much less dogmatic about such matters, preferring to approach much of the mystery surrounding death and the world to come as, well, a mystery. A few thoughts (hardly authoritative):

1. Icons do not depict literal history; in fact, they often on the surface of things contradict it. A very famous example is St. Paul's presence in icons of Pentecost. What is being depicted is a spiritual truth, namely, that the Spirit who came upon the 12 and the others at Pentecost is the very same Spirit that inspired St. Paul's ministry. So in this case, the soul being borne by an angel is just a symbol of St. Anne's sanctity, not a statement that she immediately went to the bliss of heaven that very day.

2. Also, the Byzantine traditions about the state of the soul after death are a bit different than Latin ones. In short, before the Passion, souls departed to Hades/Sheol; this is less a place than the very state of death itself. Anyway, when Christ descended into Hades at his death, Hades realized that it had no power over the Life-giver, and the chains of death were burst, and Christ was resurrected, and in him, human nature is transformed. This is all very similar to the Harrowing of Hell in the medieval West. So there is a difference in emphasis in the Byzantine and Latin traditions: whereas for the Latins, it is the Passion that makes propitiation for us, and the Resurrection is a sign of Christ's triumph, for Byzantines, it is the Resurrection itself that is salvific and vivifying. This is borne out in the different ways the two traditions view the Eucharistic liturgy: a bloodless re-presentation of Calvary in the West, a participation in the heavenly liturgy in the East. Obviously one does not want to push these two traditions so far as to set them in opposition.

3. The Byzantine traditions about souls after the Resurrection are a little unclear compare to what the West has defined. Essentially, salvation and heavenly bliss are not complete until the General Judgment, when souls and bodies are reunited. The saved enjoy a foretaste of heaven now, but it is not complete until the End. Likewise, the damned experience a foretaste of damnation now, but this is not complete until the End, when God pronounces his final judgment on the universe. Some in the East believe certain people can be "prayed out of hell" in this intermediate period, but there are many in the East who say this contradicts the Scriptures, although there are many old stories of saints doing exactly this. Basically, the Byzantine tradition has not dogmatized any of this, choosing rather to continue their traditional practices of prayer for the dead and invoking the saints and not sweating the details.

4. And of course I haven't touched the toll houses with the proverbial 10-foot pole...

[aquinas138]

Sincerely, I pose this as a genuine question, not to argue.

If tradition teaches that St. Anne died at 79 then wouldn't she have lived through most of Christ's life on earth. Here is my logic:
St. Anne and St. Joachim were probably married when St. Anne was 14 or 15 according to the tradition of the time. If I recall,  it was 20 years into their marriage before Mary was born. And Mary was 15 when Jesus was born therefor making St. Anne 50 at the time. And if tradition teaches St. Anne was 79 when she died that would make her present in Jesus' life until he was 29 right before He started His public ministry.

That is a good observation. As none of this is in the canonical scriptures, there is a lot of variance in the different traditions surrounding Ss. Joachim and Anne; it is fascinating how differently the various parts of the Church think about things. The Byzantines seem to believe that they were married for fifty years. Scanning through the liturgical texts, I don't see any mention of their age, just the fact that her barrenness was overcome. OrthodoxWiki has a summary of the Byzantine tradition; in short, they were married 50 years; Joachim died at age 80, and Anne at age 79; Mary was orphaned at 10 and had been living in the Temple for 7 years. So St. Anne was probably around 19 when they married.