Thousands get taste of Greek culture
By Allison Schaefers
Advertiser Staff Writer
Michael Klimenko tried to express his enthusiasm for the 23rd annual Greek Festival yesterday, but the ticket-taking kept getting in the way.
Rebecca Breyer • The Honolulu Advertiser
Klimenko, who talked rapidly about the festival using broad hand gestures, would no sooner utter a few words when someone would be standing before him needing change for the price of admission. Klimenko and other volunteers from the Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Cathedral got interrupted thousands of times during the two-day festival, which organizers described as a resounding success.
Kristi Desuacido of Mililani, right, and Sandra Tory of Pearl City did some dancing at the 23rd annual Greek Festival at McCoy Pavilion at Ala Moana Park yesterday. About 15,000 attended the two-day weekend event.
"It's been an all-out record year" said Nicholas V. Gamvas, pastor of the church. "We've had more than 15,000 people go through here in two days."
Gamvas said each year around Aug. 15, the Greek community uses the festival to commemorate the dormition or "falling asleep" of the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. Greek Orthodox believe that the Virgin Mary was transferred to eternal life during the event, he said.
Preparations for the feast begin Aug. 1 with a period of fasting.
"The annual festival is held as a way to break the fast and to share the Greek culture with the community," Gamvas said. "It's also a whole lot of fun."
Greeks are not a large population in Hawai'i — the cathedral's congregation is made up of about 305 families, and about three-quarters of those are Serbian, Russian and other ethnic groups — that's why it's so important to share the country's rich culture with others, Gamvas said.
The festival is also an important fund-raiser. Each year, the congregation spends about $15,000 on airline tickets for children who live on the Neighbor Islands and need to come to O'ahu for cancer treatments. Parishioners also pay for meals for the homeless, he said.
As passersby visited the McCoy Pavilion Saturday and yesterday at Ala Moana Park it was as though they were walking through a city of Greek tavernas filled with Mediterranean sights, sounds and smells.
Cindy and Tom Eulitt of Kailua didn't make it far past Klimenko's ticket counter before the smell of traditional Greek cuisine captured their attention.
"I'm been thinking about this all year, ever since the last festival," Cindy Eulitt said as she and her husband stood in the food line. "If you notice, we came straight for the food."
There were plenty of choices ranging from moussaka, a sort of Greek lasagna with eggplant, beef and cheese, to spanakopita, spinach and feta cheese in phyllo dough, to skewers of lamb and pork souvlaki, dolmathes and tray after tray of pastries including homemade baklava and other sugar-laden goodies such as koulourakia, melomakarona and kourambiedes.
The Philoptochos Society, ladies auxiliary, which does all the festival baking, started planning in May to prepare the 163 pans of baklava and thousands of other pastries that were served over the weekend.
Catherine Bukes of Hawai'i Kai and Fannie Proskefalas of Makiki have been organizing and preparing festival food for some 20 years. The koulourakia recipe they use is courtesy of Bukes' mother and godmother.
"It's been passed down and served for quite some time," said Bukes as she stood in the pastry closet and cut baklava into diamond shapes and placed the sweet pastry, crammed with nuts and honey, into a pan.
Making the Greek pastries and other delicacies is a lot of work, but anything else is unthinkable, said Frances Hallonquist, a church volunteer.
"It's unimaginable that you could have a festival without baklava," Hallonquist said.
But getting a taste of Greek culture at the festival included more than just eating, said Ruth Constantine Ehrhorn, a church member and sculpture exhibitor at the festival. Ehrhorn said she was born and raised in Seattle's Greek community, but fell away from her religion as an adult. The spirit of the Greek Orthodox Church on O'ahu drew her back to the fold, she said.
"The Mediterranean Greek men and women have a really incredible passion about life and because of that, everything they do is filled with work and electricity and passion," Ehrhorn said. "It's hard to resist that pull."
It was also hard for festivalgoers to resist sitting under a banyan tree and listening to The Hellenic Sounds Band from California or Sotos Kappas and Eleftherio Demoglou strum their guitars. Belly dancers and Greek folk dancers also performed.
Symeon Michaelidis, who moved to Waikele from Athens, Greece, 27 years ago, taught many festivalgoers a few traditional dances from his homeland.
Step, step, kick, kick, crowds of people linked hands, raised their arms high and danced.
"Dance is life," Michaelidis said.
Reach Allison Schaefers at aschaefers@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-8110.
