Today, 19 June 2016, the Orthodox Christians celebrate the Descent of the Holy Spirit or Pentecost. His Grace Ieronim Sinaitul, Assistant Bishop to the Patriarch celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Patriarchal Cathedral of Bucharest on the occasion of this great feast.
After reading the Gospel text of the day, (Saint John the Evangelist 7:37-53; 8:7), His Grace delivered a sermon in which he underlined the fact that through the Decent of the Holy Spirit the Apostles start implementing the sacraments of God and preaching the Gospel to all nations.
Saint Peter delivered his first sermon in which he used all the confessions on Jesus Christ found in the Old Testament. According to the Holy Scriptures, “about 3,000 people” believed it and did what the Holy Spirit urged them to because it had got into their minds and hearts, brightened their faces and made them faithful of Christ. Then, Saint Peter told them: “Repent and every one of you be baptised to receive the Most Holy Spirit”. So, those baptised at the time received two great sacraments, namely the Baptism and the Holy Spirit which are shared today not through the laying of the hands of the Saints Apostles, but through the Holy Great Myrrh which is blessed by all the canonical hierarchs of an Autocephalous Church – the Assistant Bishop to the Patriarch said.
Then, after the Divine Liturgy, the hierarch celebrated a special service called Pentecost Vespers, when seven prayers were said, four of them loudly and three in low voice. Walnut leaves were also blessed, as they represent the tongues of fire through which the grace of the Holy Spirit was shown to the disciples of Christ, whom He sent to announce His Gospel in various languages, namely to various peoples, up to the end of the world, starting from Jerusalem.
This is the third special Vesper celebrated during the church year. The other two are celebrated on the Holy Friday, when the Holy Epitaph is taken into the middle of the church, and on the Holy Easter Sunday, also called the Second Resurrection, according to tradition.
Tronos psalmic group of the Patriarchal Cathedral gave the answers at the Matins service and Nicolae Lungu chorus of the Romanian Patriarchate at the Divine Liturgy and Vesper.
The history of the Church mentions today’s feast as the time of the Descent of the Holy Spirit as tongues of fire over the Apostles, as we read in Acts 2:1-4.
