Today's celebration of Holy Pentecost marks the descent of the Holy Spirit and the completion of the Holy Trinity. On this day, the Orthodox Church also venerates the Icon of ‘The Hospitality of Abraham’ (Genesis 18:1-15).
In this story, the appearance of three angels is seen as a foreshadowing of the three Persons of the Holy Trinity, fulfilled on Pentecost. Abraham, sitting at the entrance of his tent, is visited by the Lord, who appears as three men standing before him.
Abraham greets his guests with great reverence, and he and his wife Sarah prepare a meal of a calf, curds, and milk for them. They then wait on the angels under a tree as they eat.
When Abraham speaks to the three angels, they respond in unison, indicating the unity of the Holy Trinity. The angels' unified response symbolizes the three Persons of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—as one Being.
The angels then announce that Sarah, despite her old age, will give birth to a son. This promise is fulfilled the following year with the birth of Isaac.
The original Holy Trinity Icon, painted in the 15th century by the Russian iconographer Saint Andrei Rublev, was housed in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow since 1929. In 2023, it was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church and now resides in the Trinity Lavra of Saint Sergius, where it was originally created.