The Pentecostarion is the liturgical book that contains all the hymns, prayers, and readings for the season from Pascha (Easter) through the Sunday of All Saints. It’s the joyful counterpart to the Triodion we use during Great Lent.
The name tells you what it covers. “Pentecostarion” means “fifty days”, the period from Pascha to Pentecost. But the book actually extends one more week to include All Saints Sunday, which celebrates the harvest of what the Holy Spirit accomplishes in human lives.
If you’ve been attending services at St. Michael during this season, you’ve heard these texts. The priest and chanters aren’t making things up or reading from random pages. They’re following the Pentecostarion, which gives us the specific hymns and prayers for each day of this paschal season.
A Season Without Kneeling
This period is different from the rest of the year. We don’t kneel. We don’t fast. The whole fifty days form one continuous celebration of Christ’s Resurrection and the new life He gives us. In Southeast Texas we’re used to thinking Easter is one Sunday, maybe a week if you count the chocolate sales. The Church says it’s fifty days minimum.
The theology here matters. Pascha isn’t just a commemoration of something that happened two thousand years ago. It’s the ongoing reality that death has been defeated and the gates of Hades have been shattered. When we sing “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life,” we’re not being poetic. We’re stating what’s actually true right now.
What’s Inside
The Pentecostarion guides us through several major feasts. There’s the Sunday of the Paralytic, when we hear about Christ healing the man at the pool of Bethesda. That’s not random. It’s about Christ’s power to raise us from the paralysis of sin.
Then comes Mid-Pentecost, which falls on the Wednesday of the fourth week after Pascha. This feast focuses on Christ as teacher and the living water He offers. The Gospel readings come from John 4 and 7, the woman at the well, Jesus teaching in the Temple. Mid-Pentecost is to the paschal season what the Sunday of the Cross is to Great Lent. It’s a midpoint that helps us catch our breath and remember where we’re headed.
Pentecost itself, fifty days after Pascha, celebrates the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles. This is when the messianic age begins in the Church. And the Sunday after Pentecost honors All Saints, showing us what the Spirit accomplishes when people cooperate with grace.
Why This Book Exists
The early Church baptized people at Pascha. The newly illumined, that’s what we call the newly baptized, needed instruction in their new life. The Pentecostarion served that purpose. It still does. The hymns and readings teach us what it means to live as resurrection people, filled with the Holy Spirit.
Water imagery runs through everything. Baptism. The paralytic’s pool. Living water. The Holy Spirit poured out. It’s all connected. Pascha is tied to baptism (we die and rise with Christ), and Pentecost is tied to chrismation (we receive the seal of the Holy Spirit). The fifty days between show us how to live in that reality.
How We Use It
During this season, the texts from the Pentecostarion replace the fixed portions of our daily services. At Vespers, Matins, the Hours, and the Divine Liturgy, we’re singing and praying from this book. The priest wears bright vestments. We light extra candles. On Pascha itself, there are processions, at St. Michael you’ll see us processing around the church and into the narthex.
There’s also the Artos, the large loaf of bread blessed at the Pascha vigil. It sits in the church with an icon of the Resurrection on it, and we venerate it throughout Bright Week. Later it’s distributed to the faithful. These aren’t just nice traditions. They’re ways of making the Resurrection tangible in our lives.
If you come from a Baptist or non-denominational background, this might seem like a lot. You’re probably used to Easter being one Sunday with lilies and a special service. But the Orthodox Church has always celebrated this way. The Apostles did. The early Church did. We still do. The Pentecostarion is how we know what to sing and pray during this season that’s been celebrated for two thousand years.
The book itself isn’t something you’ll buy and read at home like a novel. It’s a service book for the clergy and chanters. But when you’re standing in church during this season, listening to hymns about living water and broken chains and the defeat of death, you’re hearing the Pentecostarion. You’re participating in the Church’s great fifty-day shout of joy.
