The Feast of Assumption of the Holy Mother of God is one of the major feasts of the Armenian Church, which is celebrated on the Sunday closest to August 15, between August 12-18.
According to tradition (according to the pre-Gospel of James and the canonical Gospel of John), when the Holy Virgin died, the apostles buried her body in a grave dug in the Garden of Gethsemane. Apostle Bartholomew was not present at the burial, and when he went to the grave with the other apostles days later, taking the tombstone, they did not find the body of the Holy Virgin there, but only the aromatic shroud.
The fathers of the church, based on this tradition, confirmed Feast of the Assumption of the Holy Mother of God, accepting that her body was transfigured into heaven.
The feast was first celebrated in Jerusalem at the beginning of the 5th century. The centerpiece of the celebration was the temple dedicated to the Virgin, which is located on the 3rd mile of the road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. It is August 13. Later, the place of celebration was moved to Gethsemane, the place where the tomb of the Holy Virgin was located, and the day was decided on August 15.
In the 6th century, the feast spread to Syria. At the end of the same century, Emperor Morik made the feast mandatory throughout the Byzantine Empire. At the beginning of the 6th century, the feast began to be celebrated in the West as well.