Mary Falls Asleep and Ascends to Heaven

The tomb of the Virgin Mary after the death of Jesus, his mother Mary lived on Mount Zion in the house where the disciples and the first Christians gathered. It would later be the site of the Hagia Zion Church, "mother of all churches." When it came time for Mary to leave this world, she fell asleep at home surrounded by all of Jesus' disciples except Thomas. After she fell asleep, Jesus came down and took her soul to heaven. The apostles laid the body in a casket and buried it in Gethsemane in the Jehoshaphat Valley. After the burial, Jesus descended again and took Mary's body to heaven as well. Three days later, tradition says, Thomas arrived in Jerusalem and asked to bow down before Mary. When they told him that Mary had risen to heaven, he refused to believe it and requested that they open the grave for him. When they opened Mary's casket they found it full of lilies and roses, a wonderful scent arising from it. Thomas cast his eyes to the heavens and saw Mary there surrounded by a halo; she uncinched her belt and it fell into the hands of doubting Thomas. The "Traveler from Placentia," who visited Jerusalem in the sixth century, saw the belt displayed in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. At the end of the fourth century an ornate church was erected over Mary's burial grotto. The upper church was destroyed and restored several times over the years, but the crypt has been preserved in its original condition.