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Generations of Greek

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Photo by Madoline Markham.

Ernie Gerontakis was a teenager when the Greek Festival began 40 years ago. He remembers learning to cook chicken and kebabs and dancing at the festival through high school and college, just as his sons Spiro, a Birmingham-Southern College freshman, and ninth grader Petey have grown up doing.

“So many different [restaurant] professionals and grandmothers and grandfathers have passed down recipes,” said Gerontakis.

Over the years he has enjoyed seeing customers from Gus’s Hot Dogs, which he owns in Crestline, and kids he has coached in baseball and basketball come downtown to Holy Trinity-Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Cathedral where the festival is held.

“You see a lot of people you know, especially when you work as cashier,” said Alexis Pappas, whose grandmother was the first person to cook rice for the festival.

Even the church’s priest, Father Paul Costopoulos, who lives on Westbury Road, works takeout with wife, Penny.

Mountain Brook residents like Becky Kampakis start on festival preparations weeks in advance.

Kampakis heads up the pastichio, a Greek lasagna, cooking with help of her daughters, Renee Kampakis McMinn and Elene Giattina, and a large team of volunteers.

They start the weeklong process in early September, preparing cream sauce and assembling it with meat, cheese and noodles.

“It’s the most labor intensive thing we have at the festival,” McMinn said.

They work all day at the church to prepare about 100 recipes of the casserole a day to freeze for the festival. About 3,700 pounds of ground beef are cooked for 360 large pans and 800 small pans of the dish.

“By the grace of God it gets done,” Kampakis said.

Festival preparations are only one aspect of how members of the only Greek Orthodox Church in Birmingham form a strong sense of community in the city and in Mountain Brook.

“I call the parents who have kids at the high school and ask about their classes, and parents of younger kids call me,” Eleni Shipp said of the Greek community. “The older kids watch out for the younger kids, too. They are interacting in youth group and at church, and they work together at the food festival.”

In addition to dancing at the festival, kids and teenagers at the church work at stations like take out or soft drinks. This year they will also sell imported Greek products like olives and olive oil to raise money for the competitive Greek dance group made up of about 20 middle and high school students who travel to compete in January and February.

“The biggest part is our faith, our history and our traditions, and the kids are sharing that also,” said Steve Leara, father of MBHS junior Demi and eighth grader John. “They enjoy having friends from school come down and showing them their church and their heritage, teaching them how to dance, showing them the food. It gives them a sense of pride.”

Pappas, who serves as the church’s youth coordinator, also said it’s special for her kids to see their community come to their church.

“My sons, Eli and Stavros, get really excited when they see their friends in the crowd or their teachers,” she said. “They like it when people from the community support their dancing.”

Several families who now reside in Mountain Brook, minutes from their cathedral, lived in different parts of the country before coming to the community here.

One of the first things Shipp and her husband did when they moved to Birmingham from Cleveland 15 years ago was attend the Greek Festival,

“Some of the women came up to me and immediately invited us to dinner,” Shipp said.” People were so warm. I felt integrated into the community a lot because of them.”

Kampakis and her husband drove their family from their home in Gadsden to Birmingham every Sunday to attend church throughout their kids’ childhood—a commitment for which her daughter, Renee McMinn, said that she is very thankful.

“I have lived in several different places, and this [the Birmingham Greek Orthodox community] by far has been my very favorite,” Kampakis said. “I went to the Holy Land last year, and I still think we have one of the most beautiful churches. But that’s just my opinion.”

Leara, who moved to Birmingham from St. Louis, has similar feelings about the uniqueness of Birmingham’s Greek Orthodox community.

 “When you are raised in the [Greek Orthodox] church, the communities are pretty similar,” Leara said. “But I wouldn’t trade this community for any of them. It’s got all the hospitality and love but with Southern charm, which makes it even more special.”

40th Annual Greek Festival

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