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Medieval Russian icon of the Old Testament Trinity by St. Andrei Rublev, used as the icon of the feast for Whit Monday.

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Whit Monday or Pentecost Monday (also known as Monday of the Holy Spirit) is the holiday celebrated the day after Pentecost, a movable feast in the Christian calendar. It is movable because it is determined by the date of Easter.

Whit Monday gets its English name for following "Whitsun", the day that became one of the three baptismal seasons. The name "Whitsunday" is now generally attributed to the white garments formerly worn by the candidates for baptism on this feast.

Observance

Until recently, Whit Monday was a public holiday in Ireland, and it was a bank holiday in the United Kingdom until 1967, when it was formally replaced by a fixed "spring holiday" on the last Monday in May in 1971. It was also a public holiday in various former British colonies, especially in the Pacific. It is still a public holiday in some of the countries of the Commonwealth Caribbean.

The Monday after Pentecost is also a holiday in France (though since 2005, the government wants it to be a "solidarity" day where people still go to work^{[citation needed]}), Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Greece, Cyprus, Hungary, Belgium, The Netherlands, and several Scandinavian countries. In many of these countries, Whit Monday is known simply as "the second day of Pentecost" or "the second Whitsun". In Liechtenstein, Whit Monday is considered to be the "favorite holiday" almost like Christmas or Halloween is in the United States.^{[citation needed]} In Germany, Whit Monday (German: Pfingstmontag) is a Holy Day of Obligation for Roman Catholics.^[1]

In the Eastern Orthodox Church Whit Monday is known as "Monday of the Holy Spirit" or "Day of the Holy Spirit" and is the first day of the afterfeast of Pentecost, being dedicated specifically to the honor of God the Holy Spirit. The day following is known as Third Day of the Trinity. In the services on the Monday of the Holy Spirit many of the same hymns are sung as on the day of Pentecost itself. During the Divine Liturgy the Deacon intones the same introit as on the day of Pentecost, and the dismissal is the same as on the day of Pentecost. Special canons to the Holy Spirit chanted at Compline and Matins. From this day onward all weeks begin liturgically on Monday and terminate on Sunday, a pattern that continues until the following Holy Week, which ends on Holy Saturday. From Pascha (Easter) until Pentecost, the weeks begin liturgically on Sunday and end on Saturday.

Dates

In 2007, Whit Monday was observed on May 28, which coincided with the United States' holiday, Memorial Day.

The table on the right provides columns giving the dates on which Whit Monday is observed in both Western Christianity and Eastern Christianity. The Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches calculate Pascha (Easter) differently from the West (see Computus), and so the date of Whit Monday will be different most years.

References

External links

• Day of the Holy Spirit
• Trinity Week - Day of the Holy Spirit Orthodox icon and synaxarion

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