ABSTRACT
The most important measure mariophiles took in transforming Mary from an ordinary human being into a powerful deity was to deny the fact of her death. Consider, for example, what Pope Pius XII proclaimed in his Apostolic Constitution of 1950 titled Munificentissimus Deus, on the dogma of the assumption of Mary into heaven. This document is noteworthy, not only because it aggrandizes Mary enormously, for Mary had long been aggrandized in many ways – including informal recognition of her assumption into heaven since late antiquity. The case of Mary is more complicated. Many centuries would pass before the highest ecclesiastical personage of the Roman Church, speaking ex cathedra, dared to make an "infallible" denial of Mary's death. What Pius XII proclaimed in 1950 required considerable effort and initiative on his part, but his conclusions were not substantially different from what both the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox faithful had already believed for many centuries.
