Some say the Catholic Church "invented" the dogma of the Assumption; however, the Church does not invent dogma, rather she defines and proclaims God's revelation as it is contained in the depositum fidei, the original deposit of faith which is guarded and cherished in the living community of the Church, and which comprises both Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture. Simply, the belief in the Assumption is not new, but old. In fact, we find evidence for it in the writings of the Church Fathers.

For instance, St. Gregory of Tours wrote of the Assumption in about 590 A.D.: "The course of this life having been completed by the Blessed Mary, . . . [The Lord] commanded that [her holy body] be taken in a cloud into paradise."  St. John Damascene wrote in the eighth century: The Word of God "was pleased even after [Mary's] departure from life to honor her immaculate and undefiled body with incorruption and with translation [Assumption] prior to the common and universal resurrection."