Edwin,
Our Churches teach that she died-soul separated from body, end of story. We see on the Festal Ikon her body, with Jesus standing behind the bier hold a little person in swaddling clothes. This is the soul of the Theotokos. Our own Church affords her the same kinds of services as are given Our Lord on Great and Holy Friday-there is a shroud with her reposed image on it, and there is a service of Lamentations, patterned off the Jerusalem Matins of Great and Holy Saturday. At Vespers, we process with the shroud, and place it for vigil in the center of the Temple, like on Great and Holy Friday with the Shroud of our Lord, and at Matins, her shroud is taken into the Altar, to signify her Assumption. When one looks at this, as well as the hymnody of the feast itself, we cannot conclude otherwise than she died, and was raised as the first fruit of the redemption of man and Resurrection of Christ.
This is the fourth most important feast for Ruthenian Greek Catholics-since time immemorial we have had a pilgrimage on or near 15 August, both in Mukachevo and here in the US (will *you *be at Mariapovch this year?).
In Christ,
Adam