Pentecost is one of the 12 feasts of the Lord commemorated by the holy Orthodox Church. Pentecost is one of the Orthodox Great Feasts and is considered to be the highest ranking Great Feast of the Lord, second in rank only to Easter/Resurrection Sunday/Passover. The service is celebrated with an All-night Vigil on the eve of the feast day, and the Divine Liturgy on the day of the feast itself. Orthodox temples are often decorated with greenery and flowers on this feast day, and the celebration is intentionally similar to the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, which celebrates the giving of the Mosaic Law.
The feast itself lasts three days. The first day is known as “Trinity Sunday”; the second day is known as “Spirit Monday” (or “Monday of the Holy Spirit”); and the third day, Tuesday, is called the “Third Day of the Trinity”..”[16] The Afterfeast of Pentecost lasts for one week, during which fasting is not permitted, even on Wednesday and Friday. In the Orthodox Tradition, the liturgical color used at Pentecost is green, and the clergy and faithful carry flowers and green branches in their hands during the services.
An extraordinary service called the Kneeling Prayer, is observed on the night of Pentecost. This is a Vespers service to which are added three sets of long poetical prayers, the composition of Saint Basil the Great, during which everyone makes a full prostration, touching their foreheads to the floor (prostrations in church having been forbidden from the day of Pascha (Easter) up to this point). After the Divine Liturgy on the radiant and fragrant feast of the All-holy Trinity there follows the solemn and compunctionate vespers of the Trinity, with its three inspired kneeling prayers.
The first prayer is to God the Father; the second is to the Lord Jesus Christ on behalf of us sinners living on the earth; and the third is to the Lord Jesus Christ, on behalf of our brethren departed in the Faith.
All of the remaining days of the ecclesiastical year, until the preparation for the next Great Lent are named for the day after Pentecost on which they occur (for example, the 13th Tuesday After Pentecost).
The Feast of Holy Pentecost is celebrated each year on the fiftieth day after the Great and Holy Feast of Pascha (Easter) and ten days after the Feast of the Ascension of Christ. The Feast is always celebrated on a Sunday. The Feast commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles on the day of Pentecost, a feast of the Jewish tradition. It also celebrates the establishment of the Church through the preaching of the Apostles and the baptism of the thousands who on that day believed in the Gospel message of salvation through Jesus Christ. The Feast is also seen as the culmination of the revelation of the Holy Trinity. The story of Pentecost is found in the book of The Acts of the Apostles. In Chapter two we are told that the Apostles of our Lord were gathered together in one place. Suddenly, a sound came from heaven like a rushing wind, filling the entire house where they were sitting. Then, tongues of fire appeared, and one sat upon each one of Apostles. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as directed by the Spirit (Acts 2:1-4). This miraculous event occurred on the Jewish Feast of Pentecost, celebrated by the Jews on the fiftieth day after the Passover as the culmination of the Feast of Weeks (Exodus 34:22; Deuteronomy 16:10). The Feast of Weeks began on the third day after the Passover with the presentation of the first harvest sheaves to God, and it concluded on Pentecost with the offering of two loaves of unleavened bread, representing the first products of the harvest (Leviticus 23:17-20; Deuteronomy 16:9-10).
Since it is a major feast of the Lord, I will send a few emails this week concerning different aspects of the feast such as the Kneeling Prayers, as well as commentaries from the Holy Fathers.
In Lesson 15 “On the Holy Fast”, Abba Dorotheos writes, “Pentecost is the resurrection of the soul, as they say. This is why we have the symbolic custom of not kneeling in church right through Holy Pentecost.”
Sermons and Meditations on the Feast of Pentectost-
Saint Gregory Palamas, Homily 24, “ON HOW THE HOLY SPIRIT WAS MANIFESTED AND SHARED OUT AT PENTECOST ALSO ABOUT REPENTANCE” http://genuineorthodoxchurch.com/StGregoryPalamas_Pentecost.htm
Saint Basil the Great “On the Holy Spirit” http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/basil_spiritu.html
Saint John Chrysostom “Homily on Pentecost” http://full-of-grace-and-truth.blogspot.com/2013/06/homily-on-pentecost-by-st-john.html
Saint Nikolai Velimorovich on Pentecost: http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/62382.htm
Protopresbyter Mikhail POMAZANSKY, “On the Feast of the Holy Trinity” http://www.russianorthodoxchurch.ws/english/pages/legacy/pomazanskytroitsa.html