Wood icon, "Descent of the Holy Spirit", Hand painted, 20x26 cm

Hand-painted icon on wood.

Pentecost (also called Trinity Day or Descent of the Holy Spirit) is one of the Great Feasts of the Orthodox Church, celebrated fifty days after Pascha (thus always falling on a Sunday).

Fifty days after the Resurrection, on the excising Jewish feast of Pentecost, while the disciples and many other followers of Jesus Christ were gathered together to pray, the Holy Spirit descended upon them in the form of "cloven tongues of fire," with the sound of a mighty rushing wind, and they began to speak in languages that they did not know. There were many visitors from the Jewish diaspora to Jerusalem at that time for the Jewish observance of the feast, and they were astonished to hear these untaught fisherman speaking praises to God in their alien tongues. This account is detailed in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 2.

The number fifty, as in the fiftieth day after Pascha, stands for eternal and heavenly fulfillment, seven times seven, plus one.