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! Why should the WASPs have all the fun? 🙂 Although everyone is welcome! 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 Newfoundland, Canada, which is considered the northern tip of the same Northern Appalachian mountain network in which the campus-Lewisburg mission Church lies in central Pennsylvania.

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.

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. (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!

For more information, please contact 570-863-9039.

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!