St. Symeon Orthodox Church Food and Culture Fair Returns October 9

Birmingham, AL, September 15, 2021 --(PR.com)-- The St. Symeon Food and Culture Fair returns this October 9 from 9-3 with an outdoor marketplace featuring baked goods, gifts and hot food items such as Greek donuts and homemade pierogi, as well as church tours, a choir concert, and a lecture about iconography.

“Last year, we were unable to host our food and culture fair, but we did host some drive-in, pop-up sales where we offered hot food items, and those items were so popular that we’re featuring them at this year’s fair,” said event chairperson Niki May. “Last fall, we spent days making homemade pierogi, which are Slavic potato dumplings with cheese and onions, and those all sold out in our pop-up sales, so we are getting ready to spend some quality time together again, making a thousand or more pierogi,” May added.

Guests at this year’s food and culture fair will also find made-to-order loukoumades, or fried Greek honeypuffs, in a variety of flavors. The event will also feature sausage roll sandwiches for a hearty lunch option. In addition to hot food items, there will be an open-air marketplace featuring homemade baked goods and gifts.

For the church’s past food and culture fairs, the congregation transformed the church fellowship hall into a multi-ethnic marketplace with four different market stalls that loosely coincided with the different ethnic backgrounds of the congregation. May said, “This year, we’re moving the marketplace outdoors, and the four market stalls will be offering their most popular products in an open-air setting.”

“At St. Symeon, we love to bake and cook,” May said, “but our parish is really known for our choir.” The St. Symeon Orthodox Church Choir has recorded several albums and its work is in regular rotation on Ancient Faith Radio. The choir will present a concert at 11 a.m. titled, “The Psalms: Songbook of the Church.”

“We chant and sing Psalms at every divine service,” explained Fr. Alexander Fecanin, the church rector at St. Symeon. “The concert will give our guests a sampling of one way we offer prayer in the Orthodox Church,” the priest added.

The church, which was built in 2014 and features floor-to-ceiling icon murals painted in traditional Byzantine style, will be open for tours throughout the fair. At 1 p.m., Protodeacon Ephraim Rivers will present “What is Iconography?,” a talk explaining the ancient Christian tradition of sacred art and the role of icons in Orthodox Christianity.

St. Symeon Orthodox Church is located at 3101 Clairmont Avenue in Birmingham. It is a parish of the Orthodox Church in America, a jurisdiction of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Regular weekly services include Great Vespers on Saturdays at 5 p.m. and the Divine Liturgy on Sundays at 10 a.m. A full schedule of services is available at StSymeon.com. Services are in English and visitors are welcome.