On the Sunday of the Coming down of the Holy Spirit and the Day of the Holy Trinity (also known as Pentecost Sunday), His Eminence Metropolitan Vladimir celebrated the Holy and Divine Liturgy in the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Nativity of the Lord in Chisinau.
The Primate of the Orthodox Church of Moldova was accompanied by the Metropolitan Secretary, Protopriest Vadim Cheibais, and the choir of the cathedral’s ministers.
During the Divine Liturgy, His Eminence Metropolitan Vladimir officiated two ordinations: deacon Serghei Cojocaru was ordained to the priesthood and subdeacon Mihail Potoroaca received deaconal ordination.
This is the annual feast of the Pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the Holy Apostles. The Acts of the Apostles (2:1-4) bear witness to this very important event in the life of the Church.
The outpouring of the Holy Spirit is the oldest Christian feast together with Easter, having been celebrated since the time of the Holy Apostles. St. Paul (1 Cor. 16, S) and St. Luke (Acts 20, 16) mention it. It is also mentioned in the Apostolic Constitutions among the feasts on which slaves are to be freed from their ordinary labors. Of it also mention: St. Irenaeus , Tertullian, Origen, canon 43 of the Synod of Elvira (c. 300), canon 20 of the First Ecumenical Council (which stops kneeling on the day of Pentecost), St. Epiphanias, etc. The great preachers of the fourth and fifth centuries left a multitude of panegyrics in honor of this feast, and in the second half of the fourth century, the Western pilgrim Egeria describes how it was celebrated at that time in Jerusalem. Until the late fourth and early fifth centuries, Pentecost was a double feast of the Ascension of the Lord and of the Descent of the Holy Spirit, as Eusebius of Caesarea describes it as early as the first half of the fourth century. But this feast was fixed, since around 400 AD, on the 40th day after Easter, as it is celebrated to this day, with Pentecost being the Feast of the Descent of the Holy Spirit.
After the Divine Liturgy Vespers was celebrated, during which His Eminence Metropolitan Vladimir and the priests present read the kneeling prayers, in which they thanked the Good Lord for His blessings, asking for the mercy of the Almighty.
Synodal Sector of Institutional Communication and Media Relations