Assumption of the Virgin, a church festival instituted at the beginning of the 7th century in the East, and of the 9th in the West. In the 3d or 4th century we first meet with a Gnostic or Collyridian tradition, that, after the death of Mary, her soul and body were taken up to heaven by Christ and his angels. That legend was condemned by Pope Gelasius (494 A.D.), but, through a series of successful forgeries, it was fathered on SS. John, Athanasius, Augustine, and others, and by 590 was accepted as true by
Gregory of Tours. The festival is kept on the 15th of August.