Blessed Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from the Anglican Vicariate of the Orthodox Archdiocese of America

Dear Eminences, Rt. Rev. Graces, Rev. Fathers, Fr. Deacons, Minor Clergy, Faithful and Friends;

There is no cultural holiday in America with a more Orthodox praxis today than Thanksgiving. Christmas has been turned into a consumeristic orgy, primarily commemorated with symbols that have been detached from the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. Easter, too, has been turned into egg hunts and chocolate rabbits. Christians still celebrate these as the epitomes of our jointly held Faith, but the secular world celebrates them in ways that are not recognizably Christian. Consumerism has become the instrument of the Antichrist’s destruction of meaning. The humble origins of “Turkey Day” and an act of corporate thanks has withstood these other tendencies. 

Thanksgiving is a holiday where the actions of Christian metaphysics are put on display in an intimate context - gathering, sharing, giving thanks, and the recognition of shared bonds. These steps are the fundamental building-blocks of establishing any community, and are the central values of the Church’s synaxis, in our Eucharistic gathering, every Sunday morning. Thanksgiving in Greek is “Eucharistia”, where we get the Christian word for the Lord’s Supper. The Early Christians gathered for a “potluck” meal, called an “Agape”, in each others’ houses, much like how we gather for Thanksgiving today. One family would bring the bread; another family, the wine; and yet another would have brought fruits and vegetables to share after the bread was broken and the cup was shared. This tradition continued after church buildings were built and “Love Feasts” were discarded, in the offering of the faithful in the West, and in the ”Great Entrance” in the East. Even when the meal was formalized and its distribution disconnected from other food, it still kept the core meaning from the Upper Room, where Christ commanded us “this do”, and showed us a physical means of eternal, spiritual Communion. 

The central acts of the Liturgy in ancient times and in Thanksgiving today, were similar - offering thanks to God and sharing with one another. The main difference is in the fact that the Christian Eucharist is Christ offering Himself, His Body and His Blood, to us. This is the place where our cultural Thanksgiving sharing stops, and where the reality of God’s provision for all of our everyday needs begins. God gives us life, He is the “Life Giver” who “fills all things”, and in this creative relationship with the origin of life we “live and move and have our being.” This is the origin of the common grace that we all have access to, baptized and unbaptized, and how the activities of un-enlightened men sometimes approach God’s goodness or show awareness of true love. “Total Depravity” fails to comprehend that life comes from God, and God’s presence and sustaining power is His gift of self, His “Gratia”, His grace, to us. 

This year, let us remember that our personhood is granted by the recognition and relationship we have with others. As the late Metropolitan John Zizioulas said in his important book, Being as Communion - “The person is otherness in communion and communion in otherness. The person is an identity that emerges through relationship; it is an 'I' that can exist only as long as it relates to a 'thou' which affirms its existence and its otherness. If we isolate the 'I' from the 'thou' we lose not only its otherness but also its very being; it simply cannot be without the other.” Our very selves our defined in relation with others, and most perfectly, in our relationship with God. We can only have these things fully realized in our Eucharist, our Communion, in our Thanksgiving. 

St. Luke describes the Early Church after the Descent of the Holy Spirit - “Then they that gladly received his word were baptized… And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers… And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, Praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. (Acts 2:41a-42, 46-47 KJV) 

May we all be able to give thanks through the difficulties of 2023 and realize the meaning of the Season, to call others to Communion with Christ (where they discover their true selves and we discover our full purpose), and prepare for the Incarnation of our Lord through the stillness and silence of Advent. 

AN AMERICAN PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING 

Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we thine unworthy servants do give thee most humble and hearty thanks for all thy goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all men. We bless thee for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory. And, we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all thy mercies, that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful; and that we show forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up our selves to thy service, and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Spirit, be all honor and glory, world without end. Amen.

Blessed Feast!

Bp. Joseph Boyd