GET YOUR GREEK ON
Popular R.I. fest rings in 91 years
PAWTUCKET — It may be true that there are plenty of summer festivals to visit in Rhode Island these days, but you probably should consider making sure you don’t miss the Grecian Festival this weekend at the Assumption of the Virgin Mary Greek Orthodox Church, at 97 Walcott St.
This year is the 91st edition of the popular Greek ethnic and cultural exhibition that includes a full menu of Greek foods, traditional Greek dance demonstrations, and merchant and crafts booths.
The festival opens Friday at 5 p.m. on the parish grounds and continues on Saturday from noon to 10 p.m. and on Sunday from noon to 9 p.m.
The festival is a Glendi setup, with everything arranged as a Greek Village, according to Elli Panichas, the festival’s marketing and public relations director.
“It is a church festival where we are celebrating our religion and our ethnicity,” Panichas said.
Panichas became involved with the festival years ago with her husband of 64 years, Anthony, who passed away three years ago in July.
Anthony was a parishioner of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary Greek Orthodox Church and Panichas a member of
Holy Cross Church in Providence but would always volunteer at each other’s parishes just as Panichas continues to do.
“We were both active in the parishes and I am still active,” she said. “I’m not a grandmother so I take the church community in as my grandchild,” she said.
And as a result, Panichas has plenty to do each year with her duties in handling festival public relations and marketing She is also in charge of running the festival marketplace with her group of volunteers and arranges for the annual offerings of arts and craft booths, this year 16 different vendors from around New England. “We always start with people from our area in Pawtucket and then also advertise online for vendors. This year we have vendors coming from New York and Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island,” she said.
A highlight of the Grecian Festival is its offering of a wide variety of traditional Greek cuisine ranging from dinner items like roast lamb and baked lamb shank to chicken dishes, kabobs, rice pilaf, Gyros, Soulvaki, and Tiropetes. Then there are the pastries and other desserts, Kourambiedes and Finikia cookies, Baklava, and Galactoboureko.
The festival chefs cook everything in the parish’s certified professional kitchen and nothing is bought prepared, she explained. “Everything is baked fresh for the festival,” she said while noting one of the many factors that makes the Grecian Festival a popular summer event on Walcott Street.
While there are many volunteers working to make everything come out perfect, the old traditions hold true in the kitchen where the men tend to roasting the lamb and chicken used in dishes and the women handle the specialty baking of all the delicious desserts and Fillo pastries.
Visitors can even attend a demonstration of the parish volunteers baking with Fillo or learn the secrets of Greek Baklava and Spanakopeta, Panichas said.
Once again this year, the Stratis family, operators of the House of Pizza on Division Street, will be putting together a special village menu for dinner on Friday night. It is just part of all the volunteering the family has done for the parish over the years, she said.
If all that seems likely to set back someone’s diet, Panichas said the festival also offers the opportunity to dance away all the good food, or at least watch someone else doing that work.
A band playing traditional Greek music will be on stage at different times during the festival and once again the Greek Orthodox Church of Assumption dance group will also be performing throughout the weekend.
The parish’s Greek Pride Dance Troupe will be performing both Greek village and island dances while dressed in the authentic Greek costumes for those roles, she noted.
Performing since it was founded by parish members in 1989 as a way to pass on Greek traditions to parish young people, the troupe offers several different age groups of dancers as well as both village and island styles of dance.
Each performance features dancers wearing the appropriate traditional Greek clothing for that style of dance and Panichas said the result is pure perfection. “They are magnificent,” she said. “They are wonderful and they really are the best dancers in the area. They are invited to perform at Greek festivals all over New England.”
The local festival is held in honor of the Feast of the Assumption, which is the parish’s special religious feast on Aug. 15. The Cranston Greek Festival in Cranston is held in September by the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in that community in honor of its parish feast, Panichas noted.
In Pawtucket, the festival is an event that draws in both long time parish members and members of the community at large, she noted. “It is the 91th annual festival and it is almost incomprehensible that it had been going on for that long,” she said. “People are very dedicated to the parish and it is a community where the children come to Greek school to learn the language and then go to religious school to learn about the religion,” she said.
The Grecian Festival is the parish’s primary fundraiser for all of its programs and as a result remains an important event on the calendar that sparks a lot of early planning, according to Panichas.
With last weekend marked by heavy rains in the area, Panichas said the Church of the Assumption is looking for much better weather this weekend so that everything planned can go off without complications.
“We are anxious about the weather but it hasn’t held us back since we start our planning early,” she said.
The actual set up of the Greek Village on the parish grounds doesn’t happen until midweek this week, she noted.
“The Festival opens at 5 p.m. on Friday, so we have to be ready,” she said.
Tents will be set up on the grounds regardless of the weather and children’s activities will include games, face painting and even a photo taken with a life-sized Evzone, or Greek soldier. The Rhode Island National Guard will be bringing along its U.S. Army climbing wall to add to all the fun, and authentic Greek clothing, jewelry and religious items will be available at both the indoor and outdoor market booths.
Free street parking is available in the parish neighborhood and a free shuttle bus will also be providing access to a parking lot a short distance away on Roosevelt Avenue opposite City Hall. For more information, call 401725-3127.