The Pentecostarion
The Pentecostarion (Gk., "book of fifty days"; Slav. Tsvetnaya Triód, "flowery" or "festal triodion") contains the special prayers and hymns used during the Paschal season, and serves as a companion volume to the (Lenten) Triodion. The title refers to the fifty days from Pascha to Pentecost.
Contents of the Pentecostarion
The "time of the Pentecostarion" begins with the great feast of Pascha, the Resurrection of our Lord, God and Savior, Jesus Christ, and ends with the Feast, of All Saints, which falls on the Sunday after Pentecost. Thus the Pentecostation includes services for:
The
Feast of Pascha
The forty days from Pascha to the day before the Ascension
(called the leave-taking of Pascha)
The Feast of the Ascension
The nine days from Ascention to Pentecost
The Feast of Pentecost
The six days from Pentecost to All Saints
The Feast of All Saints, the 8th Sunday after Pascha
On the Monday after All Saints, we put away the Pentecostation for another year, and return to using the hymns in the Octoechos and the Menaion.
As noted in the page on the Triodion, the services for Great and Holy Week may be placed in either the Triodion (Russian Orthodox of the Old Rite, and Greek Catholic books in Church Slavonic) or in the Pentecostarion (Russian Orthodox of the New Rite, most other Orthodox, and Greek Catholic books in English). The primary advantage of placing the Holy Week services in the (Lenten) Triodion is that it results in a Triodion and Pentecostarion that are about the same size.
The Pentecostarion in Church Slavonic
In 1926, the Stauropiggian Institute of the Church of the Dormition in L'vov published a full Pentecostarion, with the approval of Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytskiy. This volume may sometimes be obtained through rare book dealers.
No new edition of the Pentecostarion was published as part of the Ruthenian reform of the 1940's.
A Pentecostarion in Church Slavonic following the Great Russian usage is available on-line, courtesy of St. Sergius of Radonezh Russian Orthodox Cathedral, Parma, Ohio.
The Pentecostarion in English
In 1986, the Sisters of Saint
Basil the Great in Uniontown, Pennsylvania published a complete
Pentecostarion, which has become the standard Pentecostarion used in
the Byzantine
Catholic Church. It includes the Office of Matins, and the
Hour for Bright Week; however, like their Triodion, it lacks
rubrics and explanatory material. Consult the Typikon for
information on how the hymns are to be used,