The Divine Liturgy at St. Elias Antiochian Orthodox Christian Cathedral of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.Each year, on the second Monday of October, Canada celebrates its Thanksgiving holiday as “a day of general thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed.” Its origin dates to 1578.
The Antiochian Archdiocese has 18 Canadian parishes. For the holiday, they are encouraged to open and offer worship and thanksgiving to God for all of His gifts. To that end, the Online Liturgical Guide has provided Liturgical Texts of Great Vespers with special hymnography for the holiday, as well as Glory to God for All Things: An Akathist of Thanksgiving, composed in Russia under Communistic oppression as a reminder to the suffering clergy and faithful of God’s blessings in this life and the life to come. Parishes can offer one or the other service on Sunday night, October 11.
On Monday morning, October 12, parishes can celebrate the Eucharist, which literally means “to give thanks,” in the Divine Liturgy. The Variables contain Epistle and Gospel readings that are a call to thanksgiving, as well as the famous Thanksgiving Day sermon “Thank You, O Lord!” delivered by Fr. Alexander Schemann just weeks before his repose in 1983.
In the coming weeks, the Online Liturgical Guide will also post Liturgical Texts for American Thanksgiving on Thursday, November 26.