(Above) Traditionally the icon of Jesus Christ preaching as a youth in the Temple is used as an icon for Mid-Pentecost, because of the feast’s emphasis on our Lord as Teacher. (Below) Icon of Saint George the Great-Martyr.
An homily from St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church in Winfield, PA, for Mid-Pentecost (7534/2026), by Priest Paul Siewers.
Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!
The holy glorious and right-victorious Great-martyr and Trophy-bearer George was a Christian Roman soldier who stood against pagan tyranny for the Orthodox Christian faith and was killed under Diocletian in the early fourth century A.D. His example leading many to the Church. St. George, as a warrior-saint who was also famed for killing a dragon, became a patron saint of Russia and England, and thus affects both sides of our heritage at St. John’s, an English-speaking Russian mission parish in American Appalachia.
The saint’s fight with the dragon according to tradition began with a dragon nesting in the source of water for a Middle Eastern town, prompting citizens to offer human sacrifices to the dragon to move it away at times from the needed water source. George in his travels arrived as the local princess was being offered to the dragon. Invoking the Holy Trinity, he slew the dragon and saved the princess, leading to the conversion of the town to Christianity. George’s fight of the dragon reminds us of the battle of Archangel Michael with the dragon Satan at the end of the world in the book of Revelation. St. George’s victory, depicted in the icon before us in Church (and pictured above), reminds us of how each of us as Orthodox Christians is called to spiritual warfare.
In his letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul reminds us of how each of us must put on the belt of Truth, the Breastplate of Righteousness, the shoes of the Gospel of Peace, the Shield of Faith, the Helmet of Salvation, and the Sword of the Spirit, which is God’s mighty Word. Thus we are reminded how virtues such as courage or might are gifts of the Spirit from God, for which we must struggle to open our heart. These gifts grow out of our baptism and chrismation with God’s help.
Revelation also reminds us of how the serpent, Satan, in Genesis, had swelled into a dragon in the latter days. Legends of dragons cross many human cultures, although perhaps St. George’s tradition is the most famous worldwide. They are symbols of ancient creatures known in earlier ages of the world, which some say lingered into ancient human times, but also of earthbound primordial carnivority linked to the Fall.
Today, the conjunction of the Feast of St. George with the Mid-Pentecost Feast is a special blessing. It reminds us of how the mysteries of Baptism in the Resurrection, from Pascha, and of Chrismation by the Holy Spirit, from Pentecost, are linked in this Mid-Pentecost feast today. The Living Water of Baptism given to us by our Lord Jesus Christ and infused by the Holy Spirit is a theme of the springtime Mid-Pentecost Feast, and we will have a traditional Lesser Blessing of the Waters for the feast soon also.
An entry in The Great Horologion for Mid-Pentecost states:
“Therefore, since the things spoken of by Christ in the middle of the Feast of the Tabernacles are related to the Sunday of the Paralytic that is just passed, and since we have already reached the midpoint of the fifty days between Pascha and Pentecost, the Church has appointed this present feast as a bond between the two great Feasts, thereby uniting, as it were, the two into one, and partaking of the grace of them both. Therefore today’s feast is called Mid‐Pentecost, and the Gospel Reading, ‘At Mid‐feast’—though it refers to the Feast of the Tabernacles—is used.
“It should be noted that there were three great Jewish feasts: the Passover, the Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles…. Pentecost was celebrated fifty days after Passover, first of all, because the Hebrew tribes had reached Mount Sinai after leaving Egypt, and there received the Law from God; secondly, it was celebrated to commemorate their entry into the Promised Land.”
Pascha and Pentecost are inseparably connected, for the one leads to the other, and the later holiday draws on the first. This season links all the above-mentioned three great Old Testament feasts in their fulfillment in the Orthodox Christian Church as Israel.
We move toward Pentecost, the establishment of the Church as the Body of Christ in the Holy Spirit, all of which flows from the Resurrection of our Lord.
This is a special joyful time between and amid both. Spiritually this season is where we should live year-round as Orthodox Christians, courageous from our baptism and chrismation, upholding the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ in the flow of the Living Waters He gave us from the Holy Spirit–just like Saint George the dragon killer, our Christian exemplar in unseen warfare. May St. George intercede for us in our spiritual battles for Orthodox Christian evangelism in America.
Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!
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Troparion, tone 8: Having come to the middle of the Feast, refresh my thirsty soul with the streams of piety; for Thou, O Saviour, didst cry to all: Let him who thirsts come to Me and drink. O Christ our God, Source of Life, glory to Thee.
Kontakion, tone 4: When the Feast of the law was half over, O Lord and Creator of all, Thou didst say to the bystanders, O Christ our God: Come and draw the water of immortality. Therefore we fall down before Thee and cry with faith: Grant us Thy bounties, for Thou art the Source of our Life.
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Holy Gospel according to John,
§ 26 [7:14-30]
In the midst of the Feast of Pentecost, Jesus went up into the temple and taught. And the Jews marvelled, saying, ‘How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?’ Jesus answered them, ‘My doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me. If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be from God, or whether I speak from Myself. He that speaketh from himself seeketh his own glory; but He that seeketh the glory of Him that sent Him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in Him. Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law? Why go ye about to kill Me?’ The people answered and said, ‘Thou hast a devil. Who goeth about to kill thee?’ Jesus answered and said unto them, ‘I have done one work, and ye all marvel. Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision (not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers), and ye on the Sabbath day circumcise a man. If a man receive circumcision on the Sabbath day, that the Law of Moses should not be broken, are ye angry at Me because I have made a man every whit whole on the Sabbath day? Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgement.’ Then said some of them from Jerusalem, ‘Is not this he whom they seek to kill? But lo, he speaketh boldly, and they say nothing unto him. Do the rulers know indeed that this is the very Christ? Yet we know from whence this man comes; but when Christ cometh, no man will know from whence He comes.’ Then Jesus cried out in the temple as He taught, saying, ‘Ye both know Me, and ye know from whence I am. And I am not come of Myself, but He that sent Me is true, whom ye know not. But I know Him, for I am from Him, and He hath sent Me.’ Then they sought to take Him; but no man laid hands on Him, because His hour had not yet come.
Holy Gospel according to John,
§52 [15:17-16:2]
The Lord said to His disciples, ‘These things I command you, that ye love one another. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you: ‘The servant is not greater than his lord.’ If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept My saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for My name’s sake, because they know not Him that sent Me. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they would not have sin, but now they have no cloak for their sin. He that hateth Me hateth My Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no other man did, they would not have had sin; but now they have both seen and hated both Me and My Father. But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law: ‘They hated Me without a cause.’ But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth who proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me. And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with Me from the beginning. These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not lose faith. They shall put you out of the synagogues; yea, the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.’