The great feast of Pentecost, the day after Easter, is the birthday of our Church, because on that day "the Holy Spirit descended upon the Disciples." This greatest event is honored by Christians as appropriate, according to what was established by the holy Fathers, especially through the richly meaningful sacred Services of both Sunday and the Monday of the Holy Spirit.
Hymns, Prophecies, Canons, and the prayers of our kneeling invite us to realize the "fulfillment of the promise, the completion of hope" and to lift our mind and heart to the Holy Spirit, which "brings forth prophecies, perfects priests, teaches wisdom to the unlettered, and reveals fishermen as theologians" and "constitutes the entirety of the institution of the Church" (Stichera idiomela of Vespers).
The sacred Services presented in this Manual aim to help us achieve at least a partial understanding of the mystery of the Triune Godhead. We, the faithful, are called to worship "the Son with the Father, together with the Holy Spirit; for the Father begot the Son coeternal and jointly enthroned, and the Holy Spirit was in the Father, together with the Son glorified; one power, one essence, one deity..."
Hymns such as "Blessed are You, Christ our God..." and "Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of truth...", which are sung by the lips of Christians almost on a daily basis, declare one thing: That the invocation and presence of the Holy Spirit is an essential element in the hard struggle of present life and in the journey towards the eternal!
