Orthodox Biz Blog

A few years back I was attending a Greek Orthodox parish. At coffee hour one Sunday, I asked a recently Chrismated couple how their Thanksgiving had been the week before.

"It was good," the husband said, "But it was hard eating vegetarian when my family was having turkey."

I laughed, because I'd just spent Thanksgiving at the home of an Orthodox priest with a big, fat turkey in the deep fryer.

They asked me why I was laughing, so I explained to them that Orthodox Christians in the Greek Archdiocese get Thanksgiving off every year from the Advent Fast.

"But," the wife spluttered, "It was on the calendar! We even checked the Website!"

Nothing underscores the disconnect between Orthodoxy and American culture quite like Thanksgiving. As this story illustrates, the liturgical calendars printed by Orthodox jurisdictions in the United States color Thanksgiving as a fasting day.

Yet, the idea of fasting on the national Feast Day of the United States is simply unimaginable. So we don't. Except for recent converts or catechumens who don't know any better than to take the liturgical calendar at face value.

We are, after all, Americans and Thanksgiving is an integral part of our national heritage.

So almost all of us Orthodox Christians ignore the calendar and cook up a major helping of turkey and ham with all the trimmings. In fact, at least in the jurisdictions I've been associated with, we're given official sanction to ignore the calendar on that day. Ironically, the hierarchs telling us to ignore the calendar are, in fact, the same people in charge of its printing and distribution in the first place.

But, what message are we sending when we do this?

Is the fourth Thursday of November a fasting day, or not? If it is in Orthodox tradition, but not in American Orthodox tradition - then why shade the day at all?

In the business world, this is called mixed messaging. You are telling two different stories at once, and the result is confusion of your identity in the marketplace.

Our mixed message on Thanksgiving makes Orthodoxy in the U.S. seem provisional, as if we haven't quite worked out what it means to be Orthodox and American at the same time.

The fact that this disconnect is so visible makes things problematic for evangelism. I've been asked about this situation before by those considering the Orthodox faith, and there is no real answer to give them. The Orthodox Church in the United States just sort of makes an exception to the Orthodox fasting rule. But if the same exception is made every single year, why keep coding the day on the calendar as a fast day?

Americans don't like this kind of ambiguity. Americans like certainty. The situation with Thanksgiving is the sort of thing that drives us nuts.

That uncertainty makes us feel like we should be doing something to clear up the situation. For example, are we supposed to be lobbying to change the date of Thanksgiving so that it does not interfere with the Christmas Fast?

I'm being serious here. Many of us who try to spread the Orthodox message, both online and offline, are at least partially motivated by the vision of an Orthodox America - an America in which the Orthodox Church is the dominant religious influence. If Thanksgiving in its current slot on the calendar is unacceptable, then should part of our long-term goal as Orthodox proponents in the United States be to change the date of Thanksgiving?

Or, given the unique cultural heritage of this nation, is Thanksgiving in late November acceptable, even though it falls within the Christmas Fast? After all, various proclamations have fixed days of Thanksgiving in late November since the 17^th Century. That may be yesterday to the mind of the Orthodox Church, but for a nation as young as America this is the closest thing we have to an ancient tradition.

Does this really matter? There are much bigger problems in the world than whether or not our turkey on Thanksgiving is Orthodox. But, things which cloud our message to the American public are harmful to the spread of Orthodoxy. The fact that Orthodoxy is officially confused or ambigious in its relationship to America's national feast day certainly doesn't help us win any converts to the true faith.

This Thanksgiving problem is really a symptom of a larger concern. Orthodoxy needs to get its arms around American culture and sort the wheat from the chaff. That which is good and noble should be Chrismated and preserved, just as was done with countless other cultures in times past. That which is irredeemable should be replaced with that which is holy. The result will be a distinct American Orthodoxy which will take its place globally alongside the Orthodox cultures of other nations.

Many things going under the rubric of American culture aren't worthy of preservation, of course, but is our national day of prayer and thanksgiving one of them?

Glen Chancy is CIO for corfun.com and publisher of Orthodox Biz. You can contact him here .

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