Pentecost & the Birth of the Church

Fifty days after the Resurrection, on the Jewish feast of Weeks, the Holy Spirit came down on the apostles in Jerusalem as a rushing wind and tongues of fire, and they spoke so that pilgrims from every nation heard them in their own language. The Church reads it as Babel undone: when the Most High confused the tongues He divided the nations, sings the kontakion of the feast, but when He distributed the tongues of fire He called all to unity. St Peter preached the prophecy of Joel fulfilled, and about three thousand were baptised that day. Acts describes the community that followed in one sentence the Church has never stopped quoting: they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in the prayers. In the icon the apostles sit in a half-circle, St Paul among them though he was not yet called, and beneath them in a dark arch sits an old king holding twelve scrolls: the world, waiting to be told.