Pentecost – The Birthday Of The Church

The date of Pentecost changes each year, along with Easter. It is 50 days after Easter which is also seven weeks.

Pentecost is also called Whit Sunday and is celebrated by Christians in the UK. (Pentecost comes from the Greek pentecostē, “50th day”)

This is a major festival in the Christian church, celebrated on the Sunday that falls on the 50th day after Easter. It is also 10 days after the ascension of Jesus to heaven, which is 40 days after Easter. Ascension Day is a public holiday in some countries but not in the UK. In 2022 Ascension Day was on Thursday 26 May.

“Whitsun” is variously believed to be a shortening of “White Sunday” or to have its origins in the Anglo-Saxon word “wit”, which means “understanding”. Often Whitsun is a time for baptisms when worshippers wear white.

Churches are often decorated in red at Pentecost and clergy wear red vestments to symbolise the joy and fire of the Holy Spirit.

Whit Sunday comes before ‘Whit Monday’ the traditional holiday in the UK , but this was replaced in 1971 by a bank holiday on the final Monday in May. However this is still a public holiday in some European countries.

The first Pentecost

Pentecost started off as a Jewish harvest festival called Shavuot (Feast of Harvest or Feast of Wheats) a thanksgiving for the first fruits of the wheat harvest, which was 50 days after the agricultural festival of Passover. The day celebrated the beginning of the early weeks of the wheat harvest.

The apostles were celebrating this festival when the Holy Spirit descended on them. This event has since become the birth of the Christian Church. About 3,000 people were baptized that day after hearing Peter preach.

According to the Christian Bible it was the 50th day after Easter when the apostles were praying and the Holy Spirit descended on them. It also marks the beginning of the mission of the Christian church to the world and is the birth of the Christian church.

Pentecost 2022

In 2022 Pentecost or Whitsun falls on Sunday 5 June and coincides with the Queen's Platinum Jubilee. Pentecost or the birth of the Christian Church is celebrated seven weeks after Easter Sunday which was on Sunday 17 April.

Trinity

The Holy Spirit is the third part of the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Pentecost Symbols

The symbols of Pentecost are those of the Holy Spirit and include flames, wind, the breath of God and a dove.





Hymns sung at Pentecost take the Holy Spirit as their theme, and include:

Come down O Love Divine
Come Holy Ghost our souls inspire
Breathe on me breath of God
O Breath of Life, come sweeping through us
There's a spirit in the air
Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me