The festival was such a hit that next year’s celebration will last three days, instead of one.
By Kathryn Skelton
Staff Writer

LEWISTON – A thick, oily mist kicked off the kabob grill. Several women worked to make more loukoumades – honey puffs, the only sweet left – and another gladly handed out plastic trays to people starting through the food line.

Instrumental music filled the air, but close to 6 p.m. it didn’t draw any takers onto the dance floor.

There was too much eating to do.

“We never anticipated how well the crowd would come back,” said Duke Goranites, co-chair of the quickly organized Lewiston-Auburn Greek Festival.

By the end of Saturday, between 800 and 1,000 people were expected to have come out to the event at the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church.

It was only four weeks ago, at the huge Greek wedding of Christos Karagiannes’ son, Michael, that several people decided to plan a festival, a revival of an annual event that had stopped eight years ago.

“I had my doubts, really,” Karagiannes said, after proudly flashing several wedding snapshots. “People pulled together.”

Parishioners made all the food. A festival guide helped newcomers understand what was in each dish – pastitsio, mousaka, souvalakia, finikia.

The more than 1,000 pastries made for the event were sold out by 4:30 in the afternoon. The unexpected crowd had cooks running to the supermarket a few times for more lamb. They expected to grill 450 shish kabobs by the night’s end.

Goranites said people traveled to the event from Newburyport, Mass., Portsmouth, N.H., and around Maine. The success spurred them to declare next year’s festival will be three days instead of one.

Like the majority of church parishioners, most of the people attending the festival weren’t Greek, Father Ted Toppses said.

Toppses gave small tours of the church interior to about 100 people throughout the day.

kskelton@sunjournal.com

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