Pensacola’s Greek Festival Celebrates 50th Anniversary

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Popular Festival Moved to October

Pensacola’s 50th Annual Greek Festival takes place this year on October 16-18, 2009. The popular festival was started by the parishioners of the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in 1959 as a luncheon to share their culture and heritage. It has since grown to a full-blown 3 day event serving a variety of Greek foods along with traditional dance performances, live entertainment, church tours and shopping.  The festival has been held in November for the last five years. The parish decided to move the event back to it original October dates because of weather considerations and conflicts with preparations for the Thanksgiving holidays.

Admission is free. Festival hours are 11:00 am to 10:00 pm on Friday and Saturday and from 12:00 pm to 6:00 pm on Sunday. For more information, visit the church’s website at www.annunciationgoc.org. 

Live Greek music and traditional folk dancing will be the entertainment highlight of the weekend. Youth dancers dressed in traditional costumes representing various regions of Greece will perform. The Kostas Kastanis band will perform traditional and modern Greek dance music.

Bring your appetite. Roast lamb, baked chicken, dolmathes, mousaka, pastitsio, spanakopita, tiropita, and Greek salads are served in the dinner line. The outdoor taverna will feature gyros, lamb and chicken souvlaki, sausage sandwiches, chicken tenders for the kids, Greek fries cooked in olive oil, and calamari. A variety of homemade pastries and cookies are sold to eat-in or to take home. Sodas, Greek wines and domestic beers are sold outside. Many of the specialty items are prepared by the parishioners and by some of the popular Gulf Coast restaurants owned by church members. Kali Orexi!

The Greek Gift Booth offers imported gift items such as jewelry, cookbooks, t-shirts, scarves, worry beads and Greek specialty food items. Frappes (iced coffee) as well as American and Greek hot coffee will be sold at the Gift Booth.

Food, music and dancing are not the only attractions offered at this festival. Visitors can attend twenty minute church tours to see the architectural beauty of the inside of an Orthodox Christian church and learn a little about the Orthodox faith and its culture. Byzantine hymns will be sung by choir members at the end of each tour.

The Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church was established in Pensacola in 1910 by immigrant families from Greece. The parish is an active community of 150 families of various ethnic backgrounds.  The Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church of Pensacola will also celebrate its 100th anniversary in the Spring of 2010.

This annual event is a labor of love for church parishioners. Many members put in hundreds of hours to prepare for the festival and volunteer during the event. So many people in the church and in the community come together to work side by side for the good of the church. Stop by the Hellenic Center on any weekend in the fall and you will see many cheerful faces and busy hands as church members prepare food so they can share their food, their faith and their ethnic pride for one weekend each year to their Gulf Coast neighbors.

Volunteers are needed to help with setup in the weekends prior to the festival and throughout the festival weekend. Individuals or groups who would like to provide assistance should contact klkritselis@bellsouth.net.

A portion of the festival proceeds will be donated to the Ronald McDonald House. The remaining proceeds help the church with capital improvement projects.

Admission is free. We will not be selling pre-sale tickets this year.   However food tickets can be purchased at the festival for guests who want to use their debit or credit cards. Cash and checks are also accepted.

Advertising opportunities are available in our program and placemats which will feature several new recipes. 
For more information, including menus, recipes, a schedule of events, photos, videos and information for advertisers, visit the festival website at www.annunciationgoc.org/festival/festival.shtml or contact our festival chair Krissy Kritselis at klkritselis@bellsouth.net or Publicity Chair Maria Weisnicht maria@ced.com.