After the Saviour's Ascension into the Heavens, the eleven Apostles and the rest of His disciples, the God-loving women who followed after Him from the beginning, His Mother, the most holy Virgin Mary, and His brethren-all together about 120 souls returned from the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem. Entering into the house where they gathered, they went into the upper room, and there they persevered in prayer and supplication, awaiting the coming of the Holy Spirit, as their Divine Teacher had promised them. In the meanwhile, they chose Matthias, who was elected to take the place of Judas among the Apostles.

Thus, on this day, the seventh Sunday of Pascha, the tenth day after the Ascension and the fiftieth day after Pascha, at the third hour of the day from the rising of the sun, there suddenly came a sound from Heaven, as when a mighty wind blows, and it filled the whole house where the Apostles and the rest with them were gathered. Immediately after the sound, there appeared tongues of fire that divided and rested upon the head of each one. Filled with the Spirit, all those present began speaking not in their native tongue, but in other tongues and dialects, as the Holy Spirit instructed them.

The multitudes that had come together from various places for the feast, most of whom were Jews by race and religion, were called Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and so forth, according to the places where they dwelt. Though they spoke many different tongues, they were present in Jerusalem by divine dispensation. When they heard that sound that came down from Heaven to the place where the disciples of Christ were gathered, all ran together to learn what had taken place. But they were confounded when they came and heard the Apostles speaking in their own tongues. Marvelling at this, they said one to another, "Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?" But others, because of their foolishness and excess of evil, mocked the wonder and said that the Apostles were drunken.

Then Peter stood up with the eleven, and raising his voice, spoke to all the people, proving that that which had taken place was not drunkenness, but the fulfilment of God's promise that had been spoken by the Prophet Joel: "And it shall come to pass in the last days, that I shall pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy" (Joel 2:28), and he preached Jesus of Nazareth unto them, proving in many ways that He is Christ the Lord, Whom the Jews crucified but God raised from the dead. On hearing Peter's teaching, many were smitten with compunction and received the word. Thus, they were baptized, and on that day about three thousand souls were added to the Faith of Christ.

Such, therefore, are the reasons for today's feast: the coming of the All-holy Spirit into the world, the completion of the Lord Jesus Christ's promise, and the fulfilment of the hope of the sacred disciples, which we celebrate today. This is the final feast of the great mystery and dispensation of God's incarnation. On this last, and great, and saving day of Pentecost, the Apostles of the Saviour, who were unlearned fishermen, made wise now of a sudden by the Holy Spirit, clearly and with divine authority spoke the heavenly doctrines. They became heralds of the truth and teachers of the whole world. On this day they were ordained and began their apostleship, of which the salvation of those three thousand souls in one day was the comely and marvellous first fruit.

Some erroneously hold that Pentecost is the "birthday of the Church." But this is not true, for the teaching of the holy Fathers is that the Church existed before all other things. In the second vision of The Shepherd of Hermas we read: "Now brethren, a revelation was made unto me in my sleep by a youth of exceeding fair form, who said to me, 'Whom thinkest thou the aged woman, from whom thou receivedst the book, to be?' I say, 'The Sibyl.' 'Thou art wrong,' saith he, 'she is not.' 'Who then is she?' I say. 'The Church,' saith he. I said unto him, 'Wherefore then is she aged?' 'Because,' saith he, 'she was created before all things; therefore is she aged, and for her sake the world was framed."' Saint Gregory the Theologian also speaks of "the Church of Christ ... both before Christ and after Christ" (PG 35:1108-9). Saint Epiphanius of Cyprus writes, "The Catholic Church, which exists from the ages, is revealed most clearly in the incarnate advent of Christ" (PG 42:640). Saint John Damascene observes, "The Holy Catholic Church of God, therefore, is the assembly of the holy Fathers, Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Evangelists, and Martyrs who have been from the very beginning, to whom were added all the nations who believed with one accord" (PG 96, 1357c). According to Saint Gregory the Theologian, "The Prophets established the Church, the Apostles conjoined it, and the Evangelists set it in order" (PG 35, 589 A). The Church existed from the creation of the Angels, for the Angels came into existence before the creation of the world, and they have always been members of the Church. Saint Clement, Bishop of Rome, says in his second epistle to the Corinthians, the Church "was created before the sun and moon"; and a little further on, "The Church existeth not now for the first time, but hath been from the beginning" (II Cor. 14).

That which came to pass at Pentecost, then, was the ordination of the Apostles, the commencement of the apostolic preaching to the nations, and the inauguration of the priesthood of the new Israel. Saint Cyril of Alexandria says that "Our Lord Jesus Christ herein ordained the instructors and teachers of the world and the stewards of His divine Mysteries ... showing together with the dignity of Apostleship, the incomparable glory of the authority given them ... Revealing them to be splendid with the great dignity of the Apostleship and showing them forth as both stewards and priests of the divine altars . . . they became fit to initiate others through the enlightening guidance of the Holy Spirit" (PG 74, 708-712). Saint Gregory Palamas says, "Now, therefore ... the Holy Spirit descended ... showing the Disciples to be supernal luminaries ... and the distributed grace of the Divine Spirit came through the ordination of the Apostles upon their successors" (Homily 24, 10). And Saint Sophronius, Bishop of Jerusalem, writes, "After the visitation of the Comforter, the Apostles became high priests" (PG 87, 3981B). Therefore, together with the baptism of the Holy Spirit which came upon them who were present in the upper chamber, which the Lord had foretold as recorded in the Acts, "ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence" (Acts 1:5), the Apostles were also appointed and raised to the high priestly rank, according to Saint John Chrysostom (PG 60, 21). On this day commenced the celebration of the Holy Eucharist by which we become "partakers of the Divine Nature" (II Peter 1:4). For before Pentecost, it is said of the Apostles and disciples only that they abode in "prayer and supplication" (Acts 1:14); it is only after the coming of the Holy Spirit that they persevered in the "breaking of bread,"that is, the communion of the Holy Mysteries-"and in prayer" (Acts 2:42).

The feast of holy Pentecost, therefore, determined the beginning of the priesthood of grace, not the beginning of the Church. Henceforth, the Apostles proclaimed the good tidings "in country and town," preaching and baptizing and appointing shepherds, imparting the priesthood to them whom they judged were worthy to minister, as Saint Clement writes in his first Epistle to the Corinthians (I Cor. 42).

All foods allowed during the week following Pentecost.

The Holy Myrrh-bearers Mary and Martha, together with their brother Lazarus, were especially devoted to our Savior, as we see from the accounts given in the tenth chapter of Saint Luke, and in the eleventh and twelfth chapters of Saint John. They reposed in Cyprus, where their brother became the first Bishop of Kition after his resurrection from the dead. See also the accounts on Lazarus Saturday and the Sunday of the Myrrh-bearing Women.

The unsung heroines of early Christianity, who suffered agonising death rather than disavow Jesus Christ, were anything but members of a weaker sex when they endured the atrocities and pain inflicted by persecutors of Christians with the same quiet courage of the bravest of men. Some of them were born with the fatal gift of beauty. They knew nothing but loving care in their lifetimes and were hardly equipped or prepared to suffer the cruelties of the enemies of Christ, nor were they inured to hardship and deprivation of their male counterparts that might have given them a body chemistry to better withstand physical abuse. They were not theologians, nor clergy of any manner, whose minds had been honed to a peak of devotion to the Saviour not only by study, meditation and prayer but by actual association with oppression and suffering and were, therefore, mentally prepared for the worst. They were for the most part sweet, innocent girls whose lifestyles were aimed at motherhood and not the endurance of horror and torture. Theirs had to be the greater courage, therefore, and no man would dispute it.

One of the genuine heroines of third-century Christianity was a quite lovely girl with the pretty name of Kalliope who lived in the reign of the vicious Emperor Decius, an extremely callous and pompous monarch who took delight in barbarous acts, chief among which was the persecution of Christians for whom he had a hatred born of fear of their Lord. It is generally conceded that Nero was mad and that Decius was madder still; even though they were separated by two centuries they were two of a kind, the kind usually looked upon as the scourge of God. Had she been born in the twentieth century Kalliope may have been a candidate in a beauty contest, but in the third century her beauty indirectly made her a candidate for sainthood -- a contest she won at the expense of her life.

When Kalliope reached the age of twenty-one she had already passed the age at which most women of that day married, but it was not for lack of suitors, which she had in great numbers. Her days were filled with activity, social and religious, and twenty-one years had come and gone seemingly unnoticed. When at last she seemed ready for marriage, a host of suitors clamoured for her hand. Among the would-be husbands was a pagan who would not take no for an answer. He sent word that were she to reject him in favour of another, especially a Christian, he would see to it that the pagan authorities called her before them for their well-known brand of justice. Kalliope did not hesitate to not only deny this suitor, but made it plain that she would not marry him even if he were a Christian, a conversion which would have been highly unlikely as well as useless.

The threat to her life was carried out and through the use of false rumour and accusation she was brought to trial before the magistrate. She stood accused of a variety of crimes against the state, ranging from a mockery of the pagan faith to treason against the state, all of which was attested to by a parade of well-paid false witnesses, none of whom had ever seen the girl. The rejected suitor stepped forth to offer a withdrawal of the charges against her if she would disavow Christ and become his pagan bride. The alternative was torture, and if that didn't bend her will, then it was death in a manner to be devised.

If Kalliope had any fear or was the least bit hesitant, she did not show it, but instead she declared that the only mockery in this affair was the trial itself, and she furthermore asserted her faith in Jesus Christ. That was enough to seal her fate and she was led off to prison, a far cry from the comfort of her home with her loving parents. The deadly game had begun and the gentle Christian girl had to know the helplessness which leads to terror and which in turn weakens the will, but she gave no indication that she would change her mind. She was then put to the cruellest of tortures. Taken to a public square, she was bound to a post and mercilessly flogged until her clothing and flesh were in tatters. Her beautiful face was scarred with branding irons and salt was poured into her open wounds, and while the breath of life was still within her she was told to disavow Christ. When this gallant girl refused she was put to death. In 1957 AD a special synod allowed a liturgical service to be written by John Ramphos honouring St. Kalliope the Martyr, whose feast day is observed on June 8.

St. Kalliope pray for us who lack your Faith, courage and strength.

The Holy Martyrs of China were native Chinese Orthodox Christians brought up in piety at the Russian Orthodox Mission in Peking, which had been founded in 1685. During the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 against the foreign powers occupying China, native Chinese Christians were commanded by the Boxers to renounce Christianity or be tortured to death. Two hundred and twenty-two members of the Peking Mission, led by their priest Metrophanes Tsi-Chung and his family, refused to deny Christ, and were deemed worthy of a martyric death.

The commemoration date of the Chinese Martyrs varies between June 10th and June 11th in Orthodox practice throughout the world.