Over 10,000 attend church harvest festival in capital
VISITORS INCLUDE FORMER UAE RESIDENTS WHO HAD RETIRED AND SETTLED IN INDIA
More than 10,000 people attended the annual Harvest Festival at Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, an Indian orthodox church, in the capital on Friday evening.
Church members along with their friends of various nationalities visited the stalls at the church that offered food, handicrafts and trinkets and different varieties of plants.
Children and adults enjoyed Indian cuisine, games and a variety of stage programmes, the organisers said.
Visitors also included student parishioners who had left Abu Dhabi for higher studies and retirees who had resettled in India.
Yakob Mar Elias, metropolitan of the Brahmavar Diocese in Kerala, was the chief guest at the festival, which was inaugurated by Jiji Thomson, former Chief Secretary of Kerala.
Benny Mathew, vicar at the church, said: “We can proudly say that ours is the first church in the UAE to have started the Harvest Festival, a celebration derived from the age-old tradition of celebrating the year’s harvest. It had a simple beginning in 1978 at the church premises in Khalidiya. Since then, this sociocultural event is being celebrated every year.”
Johnson Kattoor, joint general convener of the festival, said: “As part of Year of Zayed, we pay homage to the magnanimity of the late president and celebrate the hospitality and kindness of the rulers of this great nation.”