The Dormition Fast

Fourteen days, from 1 to 14 August, and the strictest of the four after Great Lent: no fish except on the Transfiguration, which falls in the middle of it. The Paraklesis to the Theotokos is sung every evening, alternating the small and great canons, so the fast is the most audibly Marian season of the year. It ends at the Dormition, and in many places the burial service of the Theotokos is sung with a bier and an epitaphios exactly as on Great Friday, which is the clearest statement the calendar makes about what her death is.