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We know that St. Mary died and her spirit went to Paradise. After that the Lord Jesus Christ came and took her body. Where is her body now? Did her spirit return back to her body so the body can be alive?

History records that when St. Mary was sixty years old, and on the twentieth of Tobi, she was gathered with the Disciples and the Virgins of the Mount of Olives and the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to them and greeted them. The Lord Jesus Christ told them that he would return back the next day and receive His mother's soul. On the 21st of Tobi, the Lord returned in the chariot of the Cherubim, accompanied with thousands of angels and David the singer. Those assembled wept along with St. Mary, but the Lord consoled and blessed them. St. Mary turned to the east and prayed.Then lay down, still facing eastward. The virgins sat by her and the Lord Jesus Christ sat by her. David the Singer rejoiced and said, "Right dear in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." At the ninth hour the Lord received her soul and they were fastened thereto. He bade the Apostles to take up the body and carry her to a new tomb in the field of Jehoshaphat.

Regarding her assumption, it is said, "...It was impossible that the vessel which had received God, the temple of the Only Begotten Son, should be left on earth...."

The Lord did not permit that the body in which He Himself had dwelt and from which He had formed His own Humanity become prey to corruption and dissolution.

St. Mary as a human being did die in the body; but her body was taken to  Heaven.

At the dawn on the 16th of Mesra there was great thundering and a choir of angels were heard. The Lord Jesus came on the Cherubim. He asked the body to accompany Him and took her in the chariot. We believe that her body is in Paradise now. But her spirit has not returned to her body yet. This will happen in the Last Day when all the dead will be raised.

For more about the life and assumption of St. Mary, please read, "St Mary in the Orthodox Concept" written by Father Tadros Malaty.
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