It’s all Greek to us — and it’s delicious!
The Greek Festival at Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Brooklyn, the church’s 37th, brought tasty homemade food and pastries and generous helpings of traditional dance and music, as well as carnival rides, to Downtown all last week. A Greek American who worked the festival said it got her people moving like a well-oiled machine.
“We had the whole community working together,“ said Maria Fanourakis, who helped staff the festival’s rides, adding that the shindig did better than usual financially.
The extra cash wasn’t the only thing worth celebrating — this year marked the church’s 100th anniversary and its school’s 50th.
The Monday-to-Sunday event took place outside the house of worship on Schermerhorn Street between Boerum Place and Court Street attracted workers from the surrounding courts and office buildings, in addition to Greeks from all over, a priest said.
“We get a huge lunch crowd,” said Father John Lardas, priest and dean of the cathedral.
The interlopers enhanced the experience for everyone, he said.
“I think above all our people want to host this every year because of the joy of allowing people to taste, not only physically, our culture, our food, our church, our faith,” he said. “And I think that’s really the motivating factor, the joy that they have the hospitality to see who we are in this community.”
