In a nearly century-long tradition, city’s Italian-American residents partake in a festival like no other

MIDDLETOWN >> For 95 years, the devoted have flocked to St. Sebastian Church for a threeday festival and feast that mirrors an Italian sister city.

This weekend, the 96th Feast of St. Sebastian will be held downtown. In Melilli, Sicily, the patron saint has been celebrated for more than 600 years.

Many generations of residents immigrated to Middletown from the Italian island beginning in the 1890s.

“Every year, there’s something new — a new feeling of connectivity, to St. Sebastian, to our culture, our ethnicity, our spirituality, to the church — it’s like a reunion of fami-

lies,” said city Chief Public Health Official Sal Nesci. “People plan all year, just like Thanksgiving or Christmas.”

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Karen Nocera, the city’s recreation supervisor, and her husband, Common Councilman Gene Nocera, co-chair the festival committee with Nesci and Frank Marchese, a retired city tax assessor.

There is no downtime for those planning each year’s feast, said Nesci, who every year takes his vacation around the festival.

“I’m on church time, doing the work of the Lord,” he joked, “a full-time thing between now and Monday.”

The organizers will have a two-week break before beginning work on the 97th annual celebration, said Nesci, a 25-year member of the church.

This year, the traditional Italian fare abounds, like Vecchitto’s Italian Ice and a new dessert feature: St. Sebastian cupcakes from Patty Cakes Bakery. There will also be calamari salad, meatball grinders, arancini (meatfilled rice balls), meatball subs and nachos.

“I call them ‘nachinos’ because, of course, I’ve got to Italianize it,” Nesci said.

The auction Sunday afternoon features items like homemade pizza, pasta, wine and other Italian delicacies, Nesci said.

“Some guys bring down mature lemon and fig trees,” he said. “Somebody with a green thumb can have figs off of it this year.”

It’s a time when residents celebrate their Italian heritage with a passionate pageant that honors the patron of soldiers, athletes and those who desire a saintly death.

The church has been marking the feast since 1921 with a procession of I Nuri, where barefoot celebrants dress in traditional white clothing with a red sash, carrying red carnations. They run the two-mile route from the St. Sebastian Cemetery on the Middlefield line to the church, calling out the saint’s name: “E Chiamamulu Paisanu! Primu Diu E Sammastianu!”

In English, the Sicilian phrase means, “He’s one of our own! First God and then St. Sebastian.”

Middletown’s feast is the pinnacle of a year’s worth of labor, Nesci said.

“Sunday for Mass and the running of the I Nuri devotees, they come to pay homage and respect out of thanksgiving, out of joy, out of adoration for the gift of St. Sebastian,” said Nesci, who ran for years, until he came aboard the committee. “It’s not like running with friends. The spirit comes over you. It’s hard to put into words.”

These are the moments, he said, when those who have called upon their patron saint to help them and their loved ones through trying times, return the favor.

“Now it’s time to give back and this is how I’m going to do it,” Nesci said. “I’m going to charge into that church and give back with my praise. I owe it to St. Sebastian. Because he was there for me, I’m there for him.”

When the I Nuri run into the church and shoulder the blessed statue and Nesci sees passionate members of the community, “we’re looking at each other like through glass eyes. I see my friends. They’re carrying their young children, their babies. I see the expressions on their faces, the emotions in their whole body. It just blows people’s minds.”

Nocera, a lifelong parishioner, has been on the feast board for 10 years.

“My father, Ed, was chairman for 17 years: from 1972 to the late 80s. As a boy, I watched dad run the show,” said Nocera, who calls Marchese, Nesci and himself the “Three Musketeers.”

The I Nuri have a special power and connection to the festival, he said.

“They’re pilgrims — part of the church and also visitors from other churches in New England,” Nocera said. “It’s actually staggering to think this has been going on for over 600 years, this devotion to the saint.

“We call them naked runners because back in the early days, they ran barefoot for a day,” said Nocera, who every time has to hold back tears. “You see in their hearts the devotion that they have that passes from one generation to the next. It’s deep in the roots of the culture.”

Families who have been involved in the parish for decades, Nocera said, are among the 12 who carry the statue out of the church and into the streets.

One of them is Santo Salafia, who Nocera said is “amazingly devoted.”

“He takes it very seriously. Don’t get in his way, he’ll mow you down,” Nocera said with a laugh.

Phil Pessina, a former deputy chief in the city’s police force who recently retired from policing at Eastern Connecticut State University after 47 years, is a Eucharist minister who is in charge of Mass and the procession.

“To me, St. Sebastian really epitomizes what is really good about people and how they strongly believe in something.”

Pessina, who grew up with Nocera on College Street, explained the event’s roots.

“In 1414, his statue washed up in Melilli, Sicily. People couldn’t move it. St. Sebastian was a captain in the Praetorian Guard. He stood up for Christians, for what he felt was right,” said Pessina.

He said he identifies with the saint because of their similar work.

“He was a strong Christian who had faith and principles,” Pessina said. “He put his life on the line for the Christians.”

According to tradition, St. Sebastian lived in the third century and was a high-ranking Roman soldier who hid his faith. The emperor Diocletian discovered his faith and ordered him killed. However, Sebastian survived the first attempt, confronted the emperor and was then beaten to death.

“I remember as little kid in the 1950s riding on the car that carried the statue back then,” Pessina said. “They’d give us these little containers with little red ribbons with an opening. People would give nickels and dimes — whatever they could at that time.”

While an officer taking the captain’s exam, Pessina would pray to the saint.

“I knew I wanted to be put in a leadership role. With a Christian background and principles, that would be my leadership tool,” he said. “I promised St. Sebastian, I said if I was to make captain in the Middletown Police Department, I would give him my badge back in 2004.” And that he did. “I promised if he made me captain, I would always make him proud of my faith,” said Pessina, whose wife pinned his badge during the ceremony.

It’s that very badge that he placed on the statue, keeping his pledge. He ordered a replacement one that he wore until retirement.

Music at the festival includes the Precision band, which will take the stage from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday. Sound Alternative will play Italian-American tunes Saturday from 6 to 10, followed by the Prelude group Sunday from 6 to 8 p.m.

The festival runs Friday from 5 to 10 p.m., Saturday, noon to 10 p.m., and Sunday, noon to 9 p.m. Saturday night’s Mass includes the unveiling of the St. Sebastian statue.

Sunday’s Mass at 11 a.m. will be followed by the I Nuri procession from Washington Street to Broad to Court to Main Street and back to the church.