The Feast of Pentecost at the Patriarchate of Jerusalem
On Sunday, 26 May / 8 June 2025, the Patriarchate celebrated the Sunday of Pentecost, in accordance with the Book of Pentecostarion, as the day commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the holy Disciples and Apostles of Christ. On this day, through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, the Apostles spoke “in other tongues the wonderful works of God” to the multitudes who had heard the mighty wind of the Descent of the Holy Spirit, believed, and were baptised—those who were added to the Church on that very day, about “three thousand souls” (Acts 2:1–41).
On the occasion of this feast, His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos of Jerusalem, presided over the Divine Liturgy at the All-Holy and Life-Giving Tomb of the Lord. Concelebrating with His Beatitude were His Eminence Metropolitan Isychios of Kapitolias; Their Eminences Archbishop Theophanes of Gerash, Aristarchos of Constantina, Theodosios of Sebastia, Dimitrios of Lydda; and His Eminence Metropolitan Joachim of Helenopolis, along with Hieromonks of the Holy Sepulchre Brotherhood led by the Elder Kamarasis Archimandrite Nektarios, Archdeacon Mark, and other deacons. Priests representing the Patriarchates of Russia and Romania also concelebrated. The chanting was led by the chief cantor, Deacon Efstathios, together with students of the Patriarchal School of Zion. It was attended by devout pilgrims and faithful from Jerusalem, in the honourable presence of the Consul General of Greece in Jerusalem, Mr Dimitrios Angelosopoulos.
After the Divine Liturgy, Vespers for the Monday of the Holy Spirit was also celebrated. During this, the troparia were chanted:
“Today, all nations beheld wonders in the city of David, when the Holy Spirit descended in tongues of fire, as the God-voiced Luke proclaimed. For he says: When the disciples of Christ were gathered together, there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And they all began to speak with foreign words, foreign teachings, and foreign doctrines of the Holy Trinity.”
The Kneeling Prayers were then read by His Beatitude and the Hierarchs for the strengthening of the faithful, as all glorified the Holy Trinity: the Father with no beginning, the Son in the Father with the Holy Spirit.
From the Chief Secretariat
Source: Patriarchate of Jerusalem
