re question about virgin mary as the moderator noted i think you mean the assumption catholics believe that the blessed virgin mary went to heaven body and soul at the end of her life this is unusual because the normal course of events is for your body to decay in the grave and stay that way until the resurrection of the dead well it wasn t that way for enoch and elijah both of whom were translated directly into heaven it s beyond my grasp why some object that mary who was far greater than either enoch or elijah should not benefit from the same privelege they recieved she was after all mother of god full of grace and immaculate historically belief in the assumption can be found in the writings of st gregory of tours late th century and in st germain of constantinople and st john of damascus and in st andrew of crete among others and it should be noted that the monophysite chruches of egypt and syria also hold to this belief as part of divine revelation even though they broke away from the unity of the chruch in ad by rejecting the council of chalcedon it might be argued by some protestants that the catholics and orthodox made this belief up but the monophysites put a big hole in that notion as they also hold the belief and they split from the chruch before the belief was first annunciated in writing as far as is known much has been lost from the time of the fathers andy byler
