Pentecost. Holy Trinity Day

The Church has a birthday, and it is known to the hour: the third hour of the morning, Jerusalem, a rented upper room, about a hundred and twenty people inside.

Ten days had passed since the Ascension. The apostles kept together and waited, not quite knowing for what. Suddenly a sound came from heaven like a rushing wind and filled the whole house; tongues of flame rested on each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in languages they had never learned.

Jews from every nation had gathered in the city for the festival, and each heard his own native speech. Some decided the Galileans were drunk. Then Peter stepped forward — the same Peter who weeks before had denied his Master three times by a fire — and preached the first sermon in history. About three thousand were baptised that day.

Why Trinity

On this day the revelation of God was completed: the Father sent the Son, the Son sent the Spirit. Hence the two names — Pentecost, the fiftieth day after Pascha, and the Day of the Holy Trinity. The confusion of tongues at Babel is undone: people understand one another again, but no longer in order to build a tower.

Green in church

On Trinity Sunday churches are strewn with grass and decorated with birch branches, and the clergy serve in green vestments. Green stands for the life the Spirit gives, and recalls the oak of Mamre where three Strangers appeared to Abraham. At vespers, served straight after the liturgy, the faithful kneel in prayer for the first time since Pascha. The Saturday before is Trinity Saturday of the Dead, one of the chief days of remembrance in the year.

How it is kept

The fiftieth day after Pascha, always a Sunday. The Monday following is the Day of the Holy Spirit, and the whole week after the feast is fast-free, Wednesday and Friday included.

Blessed are You, O Christ our God, who made fishermen all-wise, sending upon them the Holy Spirit, and through them catching the whole world in a net. O Loving One, glory to You.