Every week in Orthodox churches in which the Divine Liturgy is celebrated, we give thanks to God. Eucharist – the word we use to refer to Communion – is the Greek work for thanksgiving. Every Liturgy is thus a thanksgiving service. That is the primary purpose of the Liturgy – it is how we Christians give thanks to God. We assemble together exactly for the purpose of celebrating our thanksgiving, every week, not just once each year. For us Orthodox thanksgiving is really a way of life, not a holiday we do one day in November. Our country’s thanksgiving holiday is just another chance for us to give thanks to God.
A eucharistic ethos means, above all, using natural resources with thankfulness, offering them back to God. Such an attitude is incompatible with wastefulness. Similarly, fasting and other ascetic practices make us recognize even the simplest of foods and other creature comforts as gifts, provided to satisfy our needs. They are not ours to abuse and waste just so long as we can pay for them.
We worship as a community, not as individuals; so a liturgical ethos is also one of sharing. Long before the earth was seen as a whole from space, the Church knew that we stand before God together, and that we hold in common the earthly blessings that He has given to mankind and all creatures. “Not to share our own wealth with the poor is theft from the poor and deprivation of their means of life; we do not possess our own wealth but theirs,” Saint John Chrysostom reminds us.
This principle, applied to the whole range of natural resources, is particularly relevant because the global environment is squeezed on two sides: by the over-consumption, greed and waste of the affluent, and by the pressing needs of the poor, often forced to deplete the land around them for the sake of food or fuel in short term. (Dr. Elizabeth Theokritoff, “‘Thine Own of Thine Own’ Orthodoxy and Ecology,” Orthodoxy and Ecology Resource Book, p. 15)
Fraternized 