Introduction

The Orthodox Church divides the liturgical year (which begins on September 1) into various parts, from one-day celebrations for individual saints (for example, October 26 is the day set aside by the Church to remember St. Demetrios) to very lengthy periods dedicated to one or several themes (Great Lent is an example).  The period from the resurrection service on Saturday evening in Holy Week to the first Sunday after Pentecost is known in the Orthodox Church as the period of the Pentecostarion.  This fancy name comes from the liturgical book called the Pentecostarion which contains the numerous hymns that are sung during this 57-day period.  As is evident, the name is derived from the feast of Pentecost, the day on which (see Acts 2) Christ, fifty days after his resurrection, appeared to the apostles and the Theotokos and bestowed upon them the Holy Spirit.

The period of the Pentecostarion is the most joyous time in the yearly liturgical cycle of the Orthodox Church.  It is in the Pentecostarion where we find the hymns celebrating the resurrection (Christos Anesti and many others); it is during this period when we refrain from kneeling for fifty days until the Vespers of Kneeling held on the evening of the Sunday of Pentecost; it is during this period where for two weeks (the week following Easter, known as Bright Week, and the week following Pentecost) no fasting is prescribed; it is during this period during that for the forty days following Pascha we greet each another with the exclamation “Christ is risen!”  The Church celebrates the period of the Pentecostarion with such joy and fervor because of the important events which the Church is commemorating:  Christ’s resurrection, His ascension into heaven forty days after His resurrection, and His sending of the Holy Spirit to the apostles and the whole Church.

Below you will find suggestions and ideas on how to begin to think about each of the specific topics in the Junior and Senior Divisions.  However, before you begin working on your chosen topic ask your priest, Sunday School teacher, or psalti to show you the Pentecostarion.  Chances are they will show you a book that is all in Greek.  That’s o.k.  If you don’t know Greek, look through it anyway and ask them to explain how it is organized.  Better yet, there is an English translation of the Pentecostarion listed in the Bibliography.  See if your Church can get a copy.  Finally, have a look at your Holy Week book.  The services for the Resurrection service on Saturday evening and Agape Vespers on Sunday afternoon are taken directly from the beginning pages of the Pentecostarion.

Good luck.  Approach your topic with joy and hope.  Among the many themes that come from the period of the Pentecostarion, these two themes are at the forefront.

Junior Division

1.  During Jesus’ lifetime, he came into contact with all kinds of people.  We learn from the four gospels that Jesus interacted with sinners, prostitutes, tax collectors, Samaritans, and various other people of his time who were looked down upon by society.  Jesus also had some very close friends.  In addition to the twelve apostles with whom he had a special relationship, Jesus was very close to three individuals Mary Magdalene, Martha, and Lazarus.  The Orthodox Church holds St. Mary Magdalene with special honor.  She is one of the few women and men to whom the Church has given the title of “Equal to the Apostles.”  That is, although she was not considered one of the twelve apostles of Jesus, her life, and the way she lived it, was equal to that of the apostles.  The main mission of the apostles was to learn the message of salvation which Christ taught and then to proclaim it to the world.  Mary Magdalene did exactly this.  In particular, it was Mary Magdalene who was the first person to learn of Jesus’ resurrection.  Mary was one of the Myrrh-Bearing women who went to Jesus’ tomb in the early morning on the Sunday after His crucifixion in order to anoint His body.  When they arrived at the tomb, they were greeted by an angel who told them that Jesus had risen from the dead.  St. Mary Magdalene and the rest of the women went and announced Jesus’ resurrection to the other apostles.  Because of all of this, and in particular, because of her participation in the proclamation of the risen Lord, she is honored with the title of “Equal to the Apostles.”  Read the various passages in the New Testament which speak about Mary Magdalene.  See if you can get a copy of the Life of St. Mary Magdalene and read it. 

2.  Read the introduction above.  The best way to prepare for this topic is to get a copy of the Pentecostarion and read various sections of it.  There are three main events which are celebrated in the Pentecostarion: Christ’s resurrection (Easter), His ascension (forty days after Easter), and Pentecost (fifty days after Easter).  Although each one of these events has its own specific focus, they all share the common themes of joy and hope.  That is, each one of these events responds to the utter shock felt by the apostles and first Christians at Christ’s death on the cross.  In addition to thinking about the content of the Pentecostarion, think about the various other periods in the liturgical life of the Church.  For example, there are twelve major feasts (Christmas, Easter, the Falling Asleep of the Theotokos, etc.) which the Church celebrates during the liturgical year.  Three of these feasts appear in the Pentecostarion.  The Pentecostarion covers a period of some 57 days.  The only other period which is of similar length and which has its own liturgical book is Great Lent (and its book is known as the Triodion).  In addition to the themes of joy and hope, what are some of the other important themes found in the hymns of the Pentecostarion?  How do these themes compare with themes of some of the other major feasts of liturgical periods?

3.  St. Stephen is remembered by the Church as a martyr.  In fact, he is called the “Proto-martyr” or “First Martyr” of the Church.  That is, he is the first Christian in the history of the Church to have been killed for his Christian faith.  When we think of martyrs, we often think only of the fact that they died for their faith.  Although this is true, they died for their faith because they were witnesses of the Christian faith.  The word “martyr” is a Greek word which simply means “witness.”  That is, a martyr is someone who is not afraid of being the light which shines before all people (Matt. 5:16), someone who openly speaks about the salvation which Jesus Christ offers, a person whose actions reflect his or her love of God and of others.  St. Steven was put to death for his Christian beliefs.  However, before he was murdered, he boldly delivered a famous speech on the teaching of Jesus and why people (in particular, the Jews of his day) should believe in Christ.  His speech was so impressive that it was recorded in the Book of Acts.  Read St. Stephen’s famous speech in Acts 6:8 – 7:60.  What in his speech impresses you?  St. Stephen was speaking to a rather hostile group of people who didn’t believe in Jesus.  Do we not live in a similar world?  Although it is rather unlikely that we will be put to a similar test of giving up our life for our faith in Christ, how can we imitate the life of St. Stephen in our society today?

4.  It has been said that St. Paul did more for the Christian Church than Christ himself.  Although this is certainly not true, it does emphasize the important role that St. Paul played in the early history of the Church.  Jesus offered his message of salvation and love to all people.  However, Jesus’ audience was primarily made up of Jews living in the area of modern day Israel and Palestine, an area about the size of the state of Massachusetts.  The twelve apostles who were called by Jesus and followed him all came from this same area as well.  St. Paul, on the other hand, came for the Greek city of Tarsus, located in southwest Asia Minor (Turkey), and, unlike the twelve apostles, he initially ridiculed Jesus and his followers.  However, St. Paul eventually was called by Jesus to become one of his disciples.  St. Paul’s conversion from a persecutor of Christians (he was present at the martyrdom of St. Stephen—Acts 7:58 – 8:1) to the foremost missionary of the Christian faith is recorded in the Book of Acts.  In fact, much of the Book of Acts is concerned with recording the activity of Paul as he set out to bring the message of the resurrected Lord to people (in particular non-Jews) living throughout the Roman Empire.  St. Paul’s activities as a missionary are also recorded in the many letters he sent to the Christian communities he founded (for example, I and II Corinthians, Romans, Galatians, etc.).  Read about St. Paul’s travels in the Book of Acts.  Look specifically at his conversion or “calling” (Acts 9:1-31) and his missionary activities in chapters 15 through 28.  Although not recorded in Acts, St. Paul was martyred in Rome around 64 A.D. 

5.  Icons serve many purposes.  They decorate the walls of our Churches, our homes, and our bedrooms.  We stand before them in prayer where their presence is a constant reminder of God’s presence in our life and in the world.  An icon is a sacred image depicting Christ, the events in His life, and the numerous saints and holy people who throughout the centuries have lived Christian lives worthy of praise.  Yet an icon is more than just a religious picture.  Icons teach as well.  They teach by depicting the saints as examples of men and women who have become sanctified in their life.  They also teach by retelling the numerous stories of Jesus’ life and those of the saints, not in words, but in powerful, colorful, and beautiful images.  The icon of Christ’s resurrection is just such an icon.  This icon has become the most common image of Christ’s resurrection found in the Orthodox Church.  The icon actually depicts Christ’s triumphant descent into Hades (hell) which is commemorated on Holy Saturday of Holy Week.  The icon shows Christ standing on the gates of hell signifying his destruction of hell.  Underneath the gates are some small tools and chains, reflective of the instruments of torture found in hell.  These too are found under Christ’s feet again reflecting his victory over the instruments of pain and suffering associated with hell.  However, the most prominent figures in the icon, next to that of Christ, are Adam and Eve, the two figures Christ is reaching down and pulling out of their graves.  Here is the ultimate statement of Christ’s victory.  Christ, through his descent into Hades, brings out of the tombs (out of hell) the first two human beings created by God and brings them into eternal life with Him.  Obtain an icon of the resurrection.  Place it in your bedroom with the rest of your icons.  Stand before it when you say your daily prayers.  Have the icon in front of you when you are writing you speech.  Remember, you are describing an image which contains one of the fundamental truths of the Christian faith: death has been overcome.

6.  In chapter 2 of the Book of Acts the remarkable event of Pentecost is retold.  The apostles along with, according to tradition, the Theotokos, were gathered together on the Jewish feast of Pentecost, a feast celebrated fifty days after the Jewish Passover and which brought many Jews from throughout the Roman empire and beyond to Jerusalem.  It was there in Jerusalem where the apostles and Mary “were all filled with the Holy Spirit” receiving the Holy Spirit as “tongues of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them.”  This event was foretold by Jesus to his disciples on the eve of Jesus’ crucifixion.  In John 14 and 15, Jesus tells his disciples of his impending death.  He comforts them by assuring them that they will never be left alone.  That is, when Jesus departs from this world, the Father will send the Holy Spirit to ensure that all that Jesus had taught the apostles will be kept and held firm.  Some fifty days later, Jesus kept his promise, and the Holy Spirit was given to the apostles and to the entire Church.  The sending of the Spirit opened a new period in the history of God’s relationship with the world he created.  Prior to the birth of Jesus, God’s primary relationship with the world was through his revelation to the Jewish people as recorded in the Old Testament.  The Jews were God’s chosen people and it was the Jews to whom God revealed Himself as God the Father.  With the birth and life of Jesus Christ, as recorded in the four Gospels, God reveals Himself as the Son.  This is a new revelation.  Pentecost, fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection, introduces a third and final revelation of God: God as Holy Spirit.  At Pentecost, God reveals Himself as the third person of the Holy Trinity—the Holy Spirit.  On the day of Pentecost, the day on which God, through Jesus, sends the Holy Spirit into the world, the Church, as we know it, is born.  That is, with the sending of the Holy Spirit a new relationship between God and his people (no longer just the Jews but anyone who believes in Him) is established.  St. Gregory the Theologian says that the Old Testament reveals the Father, the New Testament reveals the Son, and the life of the Church reveals the Holy Spirit.  The life of the Church is life in the Holy Spirit.

Senior Division

1.  The society in which we live today—driven by television, the media, and the digital revolution—is a society obsessed with perfection.  We are inundated on a daily basis with a barrage of images of perfection: the perfect automobile speeding along an empty coastal highway, the twenty-something male and female models in television ads selling everything from shampoo to dish soap, the blemish-free stars of ‘Sex in the City’ and ‘Friends.’  Our society is obsessed with perfection: image is everything.  However, life, and how we experience it, is radically different from these attractive, alluring images.  Life is full of inconsistencies, imperfections, pain, and suffering.  The period of the Pentecostarion is a period of joy and hope.  Yet it is not a period of false realities.  That is, our joy and hope as Christians are experienced in a fallen world, in a world where sin and suffering are alive and well.  We are reminded of this on the Sunday of the Paralytic, the third Sunday after Easter.  The gospel reading for this Sunday is John 5:1-15 and tells the story of how Jesus heals a man who had been crippled for thirty-eight years.  After Jesus heals the paralytic, Jesus tells him, “See, you are well.  Sin no more, that nothing worse befalls you” (John 5:14).  From this verse, it would seem that Jesus has connected the paralysis of the man with his former sins and thus warns the man not to sin anymore so that he does not suffer a worse physical illness.  This is how St. John Chrysostom understands this passage.  As you consider this parable, think about the relationship between your spiritual life and your physical health.  What does it mean to be spiritually paralyzed?  Can we say that an individual who was born with a disability (paralysis, blindness, etc.) deserves their physical handicap because of their sins (see how Jesus answers this in John 9:1-7)?  Remember that not all disabilities are visible.  Physical (visual) pain and suffering are only part of the fallen human condition: our soul, our emotions, our hearts suffer and are broken as well.  Is there a connection between spiritual paralysis and physical illness?

2.  All four gospels (Matt. 28:1-8, Mark 16:1-8, Luke 24:1-12, John 20:1-13) are unanimous in reporting that it was the women followers of Jesus who were the first to learn of Jesus’ resurrection and to report it to the apostles.  The gospel accounts differ on exactly which women were present, but all agree that among them was Mary Magdalene.  These women had been very close to Jesus and had been unable to anoint the body of Jesus after he was taken down from the cross since it was the beginning of the Sabbath.  The first opportunity the women would have had to anoint Jesus’ body would have been at sunrise on Sunday morning (although the Sabbath had technically ended at sundown the evening before, unaccompanied women would not have visited a tomb at night).  Very early in the morning the women approached Jesus’ tomb carrying spices traditionally used in the Jewish burial rite.  They had come to the tomb out of duty and love.  No one forced them to go.  Remember that at Jesus’ crucifixion the apostles had fled, leaving Jesus’ mother and the Myrrh-Bearing women to endure Jesus’ crucifixion alone.  Because of their deep love and respect for Jesus, the women risked their own lives by associating themselves with the murdered Jesus and approached the tomb in order to give him a proper burial.  Their zeal was rewarded a hundred fold with the learning of his resurrection from the dead.  Their immediate response was to visit the apostles and announce to them that Jesus had risen from the dead and that He would appear to them in Galilee.  In a very real sense, the Myrrh-Bearing Women played the role of apostles themselves by announcing (proclaiming) the good news of Jesus’ resurrection.  Yet it was their steadfast devotion to Jesus that provided them with the opportunity to be the first to learn of His resurrection.  It was their commitment and faith in Jesus that led them to the tomb in the first place.  Without the devotion of the Myrrh-Bearing women, we are left wondering who might have been around to learn of Jesus’ resurrection.

3.  The first Sunday following Easter is dedicated to the memory of the Apostle Thomas and is appropriately called the Sunday of Thomas.  The gospel reading for this Sunday is taken from John 20:19-31.  It was the evening of the day of the resurrection and Jesus appeared to the apostles who were gathered together in a room whose doors were shut.  The apostle Thomas was absent from this gathering and when told about Jesus’ appearance he refused to believe that Jesus was alive unless he was able to touch the wounds inflicted by His crucifixion.  A week later, Jesus appeared again to the apostles and this time Thomas was present.  Christ instructed Thomas to place his hand in His side and touch the wound from the spear which pierced His side while he was on the cross.  After doing this, Thomas expressed his belief that indeed it was the risen Lord with the words, “My Lord and my God.”  Jesus, however, replied, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”  Powerful words indeed.  Thomas, the other apostles, the Myrrh-Bearing Women and all the disciples of the Lord to whom Jesus appeared were, in a certain sense, lucky.  They were fortunate enough to have actually seen the risen Lord; that is, they had visual proof that Christ indeed had risen from the dead.  Yet is visual proof enough?  God reveals himself to us every day, but do we see Him?  If we do not have the “eyes of faith” then our visual sight has no real significance.  How is it that we can believe without seeing?  What does it mean to see?  Can we see Christ without ever visually seeing him?  How do icons, the eucharist, and other sacraments of the Church help us see God?

4.  Perhaps the best known hymn in the Orthodox Church is the apolytikion (hymn) of the Resurrection, “Christ is risen….”  This hymn is sung for forty days from Easter Sunday through Ascension Thursday.  It is a hymn sung with great joy, an upbeat hymn announcing the fundamental message of the Christian faith: “Christ is risen from the dead, by death He conquered death, and to those in the tombs he bestows life.”  This short hymn encapsulates the key Christian message of life after death and the destruction of death by the one who gives life, Christ himself.  Death is a fact of life.  It has often been said that from the moment we are born into this world we begin to die, that is, we begin our long (and unfortunately, at times, not so long) journey towards our eventual death.  We live in a continuous state of dying.  Yet for Christians death has been conquered, it has been “vexed” to borrow a word from the famous resurrection sermon of St. John Chrysostom.  This overcoming of death was brought about by gruesome means.  Christ suffered a brutal death on the cross to defeat death.  If Christ is God, why did he not simply “snap his fingers” and eliminate death?  Why did he have to experience death on the Cross in order to destroy the ultimate destroyer of everything?  Christ conquered death by confronting it.  He confronted death in the ugliest of ways: a torturous death on the Cross.  He conquered death by experiencing it.  Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, experienced death as all humans do.  Yet death, in the end, could not be victorious over the one who was the creator of the entire cosmos, the one who allows death to continue to have its sting.  God himself descended into Hades, and God himself destroyed the power of Hades.  God became one of us, one of his own creatures, in order to experience and transform all aspects of our life, even in death, and it is God who leads us to eternal life.

5.  As individuals with the ability to think and reason, we are capable of accepting or rejecting the numerous facts, ideas, and experiences confronting us in our daily lives.  God has given us the ability to reason and the free will to make our own, informed or uniformed, decisions.  God respects our freedom even if such freedom leads us to reject Him or doubt his teachings.  At the very end of the Gospel of Matthew we read that Jesus, after his resurrection, appeared to the eleven disciples while they were in Galilee.  “When they saw him,” writes Matthew, “they fell prostrate before him, though some were doubtful” (Matt. 28:17).  A curious and revealing statement.  Jesus, standing in their midst, announced to them his resurrection, yet some doubted.  With their own eyes the apostles saw the risen Lord, yet some doubted.  With their own ears and tongues the disciples conversed with the risen Lord, yet some doubted.  Why?  Their doubt was, in part, due to their own human weakness and frailty.  A few days earlier their hopes and dreams for the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth had vanished with the crucifixion of Jesus.  They had followed Jesus because they believed that he would change the condition of the Jews in Palestine and that Jesus would inaugurate the coming of the kingdom of heaven on earth.  When Christ, their leader, had been crucified, their belief in him suffered as well.  To see him alive again must have been not only a shock but extremely confusing.  Christ’s death must have been seen by some of the apostles and disciples as a defeat rather than a victory.  Christ had spoken vaguely, and often in parables, about his death and resurrection and the apostles didn’t seem to get it.  The many appearances of Jesus to his disciples during the forty days between his resurrection and his ascension were ways in which Jesus could confirm to his followers that he was not dead, that he would ascend to his Father in heaven, and that he would send the Holy Spirit to guide the Church. 

6.  The encounter at Jacob’s well between Jesus and the Samaritan woman is one of the more dramatic moments in the New Testament.  The story, as recorded in John 4:1-42, begins with Jesus asking a Samaritan woman for a drink of water.  That Jesus approached a Samaritan woman for water was rather remarkable given the social and religious norms of his time.  What began as a simple request for water, turns into a lengthy dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, whose name, as we learn from the tradition of the Church, is Photini.  In their conversation, Jesus tells her that he has a different kind of water to give her.  He calls it “living water” and tells her that “…whoever drinks of this water that I shall give him, shall never thirst.”  The water which Jesus is talking about is the gospel itself.  The water is the “good news” of Jesus Christ, the “good news” that “whoever will believe in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).  The “living water” is Jesus Christ himself.  Read carefully the parable of the Samaritan woman.  Think about the importance of water in a dry land like Palestine.  The water from Jacob’s well would have been rather stagnant and would not have had the fresh taste of running (river) water.  On the surface, the Samaritan woman might be thinking that Jesus is offering her a fresher kind of water (kind of like bottled water of the 21^st century).  Yet the water that Jesus is talking about is not physical water, but a spiritual water from a source which will never run dry.  Water is a fundamental element for the existence of life.  The water which Jesus offers is fundamental to the existence of our spiritual life.

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