St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church

Sunday
After church and Bible study as usual in the morning, we went down to the Greek Festival at the Greek Orthodox Church shown in my blip, which is located in an area known as Finneytown. They were celebrating their 50th annual Festival this year. It has grown to be a huge event over the years, and runs from Friday evening to Sunday evening. Besides all sorts of wonderful Greek food, it features Greek music and dancing, featuring dancers of all ages from their own congregation, an indoor market, a Greek pastry market inside which is very popular, and very well organized, as well as various other things. One of the things they offer is guided tours of the sanctuary, or you can just go and look on your own. At one point, it was beginning to rain, and there was a guided tour coming up, so we thought that would be a good time to go! The talk, by the assistant Priest, was very informative, talking not just about the sanctuary, which as you can see is really beautiful, but also about their faith and beliefs. I had seen it once before with a group from our old church, when we were studying a book about how the different denominations came to be, but in the meantime, they have added more mosaic icons - those on the ceiling, and those on the front of the balcony. For the food, we shared a plate of appetizers - meatballs, feta cheese, olives and stuffed grape leaves, accompanied by some pita bread. Then we enjoyed a spanakopita, and later in the afternoon a gyro - all very delicious! The pastries we brought home with us for later. In between eating in the shade of the huge “tent”, we enjoyed watching the dancing on the stage. A fun afternoon!