St John Russian Orthodox Mission Church and the Bucknell Orthodox Christian community will host a Thanksgiving feast with all the fixings, and a little Viking Orthodox Christian lore thrown in for dessert. The Thanksgiving meal will begin right after Divine Liturgy on Sunday Nov. 24. Orthodox Eucharistic thanks-giving worship to God starts at 10 a.m. at the Lewisburg Club, 131 Market St., back entrance, and will be immediately followed by an informal Thanksgiving smorgasbord (a feast of gratitude that will precede the start of our Nativity Fast, which we will also mark on Wed. 11/27–Thanksgiving Eve–with the Thanksgiving Akathist prayer service at 7 p.m.). At Sunday’s meal we’ll also celebrate the landing of Viking Orthodox Christians in North America around 1000 AD, beating the Pilgrims and Columbus, and leaving a lot less controversy! (Almost-authentic photos below show Viking explorer Leif Erikson, according to actual medieval accounts an Orthodox Christian, spotting a flying wild turkey.) His landing in North America is thought to have been in the fall in Newfoundland, Canada, which is considered the northern tip of the same Northern Appalachian mountain network in which our mission Church lies in central Pennsylvania. His landfall, a Christian mission with priests aboard according to a saga account, would undoubtedly have involved thanksgiving prayers upon landing.
For about two millennia Orthodox worship services have had as their centerpiece the Eucharist, which means “thanksgiving.” Thanksgiving has a meaning of glorifying God, and the meaning of Orthodoxy itself as a name is “right glorifying” or “holy glorifying.” One of the most famous modern Orthodox Christian Akathist services is the “Thanksgiving Akathist,” known also for its refrain, “Glory to God for all things!”
Yes, Erikson and his intrepid Vikings landed in North America around 1000 AD, and according to medieval accounts would have been Orthodox Christians. The Vikings were also closely connected to early Russian and Byzantine Orthodox cultures. The Sage of Erik the Read (c. 1200) indicates that Leif Erikson was on a mission trip to Greenland with priests aboard when his boat was blown off course and landed in “Vinland,” a name for a Viking settlement in North America that the saga describes as founded by Erikson, and which archaeologists associate with a site in Newfoundland.
All are welcome! Festivities will also include a brief Smorgasbord Sunday School presentation on “The First Orthodox Thanksgiving,” based on the early landing of the Orthodox Leif Erikson in North America, touching also on aforementioned strong connections between Viking culture and the Orthodox world, as well as early pioneering Christian Scandinavian saints from that era, including St. Olaf of Norway and St. Anna, Princess of Novgorod. The mini Smorgasbord Sunday School will be facilitated by Fr Paul Siewers, a priest at St. John’s and a professor at Bucknell University, who teaches and writes about Viking literature and culture, and is adviser to the Bucknell Orthodox community.
Come and enjoy American Thanksgiving fare (including turkey and ham) with all the fixings, and a little Slavic and Scandinavian flavor thrown in. Avoid any family controversy over the Pilgrims and Columbus Day and the US election, while still celebrating our gratitude to God for his blessings as Americans, in a friendly cross-cultural environment at the Russian Orthodox mission to Northern Appalachia! All are welcome!
Then come to more Thanksgiving goodness mid-week: The Orthodox Christian Thanksgiving Akathist Prayer Service, “Glory to God for all things,” will be held at 7 p.m. Wed. Nov. 27 (Thanksgiving Eve), in the Willard Smith Library at Vaughan Literature Building, Bucknell University (next door to Vaughan 121). All are also welcome to this beautiful Thanksgiving service, which was prayed by concentration camp inmates during World War II, and celebrates even amid the hardest struggles imaginable God’s gift of life, redemption, and Creation. Glory and thanks be to God!
One of our reasons for giving thanks this week was the entry of our second current adult Catechumen-convert into preparation for baptism, pictured below before Liturgy on Nov. 11, 7533 [Nov. 24, 2024 on the civil calendar].
