Holy Cross Orthodox Church

Saturday, June 14, and Sunday, June 15

Saturday morning - 8:30am Matins, 10am Divine Liturgy: As we offer our worship of Almighty God, we especially intercede for all the Faithful Departed, utilizing the kolyva, the sweetened boiled wheat which symbolizes eternal life.

Saturday evening - 6pm Great Vespers of Pentecost with Litia and Artoklasia: As we welcome the new liturgical day and give thanks for the evening light, which we do at every Vespers, this night we also welcome the holy Feast of Pentecost by singing special hymns, enthroning the Pentecost icon, and sharing the blessed Artos.

Sunday morning - 8am Matins, 9am Holy Baptism/Chrismations, 9:30am Divine Liturgy: On Holy Pentecost, the feast of the generation of the Church of the New Covenant and its infilling by the Holy Spirit, Christ brings into His Church four new members. In our midst they are annointed with the Holy Chrism and fed with the Holy Body and Blood of Christ, joining us in our common mission of personal transformation and witness to the world. At the close of the Liturgy we will honor our recent graduates and commission the Project Mexico team.

Sunday evening - 6pm Kneeling Vespers of Pentecost: On the fiftieth day after Holy Pascha, on the evening of Holy Pentecost, we are given permission again by Christ's Church to kneel, and in this service, instructed to do so, our first "bending of the knee" since Holy Week. We recall the great events of salvation in light of Pentecost, seek intercession and blessings for others, and ask God to deepen our own repentence.

Each of these services is important in our celebration of Pentecost, each speaks to the great themes of the day, while each also emphasizes some aspect that is vital to the whole. May the God who delivered us from sin and death through the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of his only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also the Holy Spirit was poured out on the New Creation, the Church, grant us all his blessings of the Feast!