Pentecost

Culture of origin: Christian · Cultural

Holiday sources: Armenian · Assyrian · Australia (national) · Canada (federal) · Christianity · France · Germany (nationwide) · United Kingdom (England and Wales) · United States (federal)

Pentecost, also called Whitsun, takes its name from the Greek for "fiftieth". It recalls the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus's apostles and followers in Jerusalem during the Jewish Feast of Weeks (Shavuot), as told in Acts 2, and is called the "birthday of the Church". It is one of the great feasts of the Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran and Anglican churches, and its date moves with Easter. In Acts the crowd at Pentecost hears the apostles each in their own language, and the first peoples named are "Parthians, Medes, Elamites" (Acts 2:9).