On today’s feast, the grace of the Holy Spirit brings the faithful together in churches all over the earth to remind of a great event that took place in Jerusalem: by way of fiery tongues, the Spirit came down on the Most Holy Mother of God and the apostles. The Holy Spirit the Comforter came down on earth, the one Christ the Savior has spoken about upon parting with the disciples: “And I will pray the Father and He will give you another Helper… At that day you will know that I am in My Father” (John 14:16,20).

It was on Pentecost when the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity has been fully revealed before the apostles. The Holy Church calls the Trinity as the Life-Giving one, since the Trinity is the beginning of life for the Church. Everything in the Church lives and breathes because of the Trinity. Everything is directed towards It: the teaching, the mysteries, the services, prayers, repentance, and ascetic deeds.

Man, in his weakness, is unable to lead the life of holiness and often loses the grace-filled gifts, so we send up prayers to heaven calling for the Comforter – the Spirit of Truth to come down and abide in us: “Come and abide in us and save our souls!”

The gifts of the Holy Spirit cleanse men from sins, reform them, and help to restore the long-lost image of God. By the action of the Holy Spirit, inner man gradually restores the Christ-like nature.

At today’s service, following the recital of special prayers and for the first time after Pascha, all present in the cathedral bent their knees. In the first prayer, “O pure and blameless Lord, Who art without beginning, invisible and incomprehensible, unsearchable, unchangeable, immeasurable, and unbounded,” addressed to God the Father we confessed our sins asking for forgiveness and the blessed help from Heaven against the works of the devil. The second prayer, “O Lord Jesus Christ our God, Who hast given Thy peace to mankind,” is the petition about the acquisition of the Holy Spirit that instructs us and gives strength to follow the God’s commandments and obtain the eternal life. In the third prayer, “O Christ our God, the ever-flowing Spring, life-giving and illuminating,” directed to the Son of God Who fulfilled the dispensation of the salvation of all mankind, the Church prays about giving rest to the souls of the dead.

Metropolitan Georgiy of Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas presided at the festive services at the Trinity Cathedral of the Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery. Concelebrating His Eminence were the clergymen from Nizhny Novgorod and Diveyevo.

Rev. Fr. Anthony Belov of the Seraphim-Diveyevo monastery said the post-Communion sermon. Fr. Anthony congratulated the faithful with the patronal feast of the monastery and wished that the Holy Spirit would come down on every faithful Christian so that we could live joyously and always lifting up our prayers of thanksgiving to the Lord for all things.

At the end of the Divine Liturgy, the head of the Nizhny Novgorod Metropolis greeted everyone gathered with the feast of the Holy Life-Giving Trinity. His Eminence Metropolitan Georgiy remarked that the fullness of the Holy Trinity was revealed to all mankind on this day. In the Old Testament, the prophets had taught people that God is one. During that period in history of mankind it was hard to keep faith in true God because of widespread paganism. But the time came and the promise of God came true: Jesus Christ the Messiah was incarnate on earth Who, at the completion of His preaching about the Kingdom of Heaven, gave up His life on the Cross for the sake of all mankind.

On the day of Holy Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came down on the apostles, Christ’s seed was planted on earth. A particular kind of the grace of God acted since then and its acquisition, according to the word by Venerable Seraphim the Wonderworker of Sarov, should become the meaning of the Christian life. Metropolitan Georgiy called on every faithful to the spiritual awakening: “We ought to cut off anything that stands in the way of our acquisition of the Holy Spirit.”

In conclusion of the hierarchical address, the ruling hierarch wished everyone to lay all hopes on God at all times and in all things, calling on His name more often, and ask for forgiveness while addressing the Holy Spirit: “The Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, Who art everywhere and fillest all things; Treasury of Blessings, and Giver of Life – come and abide in us, and cleanse us from every impurity, and save our souls, O Good One.”