A great feast of the Lord
Holy Pentecost
Also called The Feast of the Holy Trinity
Fifty days after Pascha the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles. The Church keeps the day as its own birthday and as the feast of the Holy Trinity, the One God in Three Persons.
The dates
- Kept on
- Pentecost (Holy Trinity Sunday)
- Next
The New Calendar (the Greek, Antiochian, Romanian and Bulgarian churches, the OCA and most converts) keeps fixed feasts on the church date; the Old Calendar (the Russian, Serbian and Georgian churches, Jerusalem and Mount Athos) keeps them 13 days later. Pascha and the feasts that follow it are kept on the same day by both.
How the day is kept
Orthodox Christians decorate the church and their homes with green branches for the feast.
The day after Pentecost is kept as the Day of the Holy Spirit.
Before St Andrei Rublev's icon of the Holy Trinity, the three angels who visited Abraham at the oak of Mamre, Orthodox Christians pray for the coming of the Holy Spirit, for love and unity in the family and for peace between people. The image is especially Russian; Greeks also paint it as the Hospitality of Abraham.
In the Orthodox Church Pentecost is itself the feast of the Holy Trinity; the Western feast of the Trinity comes a week later.
The saint
Icons for the feast
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