Waterford church continues tradition of Middle Eastern festival
Waterford — There was something wrong with the bouncy castle.
Father Edward Kakaty, the pastor of the St. Ann Melkite Greek Catholic Church, walked out into the sun after Sunday’s divine liturgy and frowned at a deflated plastic castle that was supposed to be inflated in time for the annual mahrajan, a festival celebrating Middle Eastern heritage.
The church has been hosting the festival for more than a decade, since Kakaty decided to open its annual picnic to anyone who wanted to come and eat classic Middle Eastern dishes and listen to music.
The Melkite church began as a Catholic community in Syria and Lebanon, and is still the largest Catholic sect in the Middle East.
With food, music from a Lebanese singer and a bouncy castle — that did eventually get inflated — the church celebrates that connection every year.
While tension between religious groups and the oppression of Christians during the civil war that has besieged Syria has worsened in previous years, Kakaty said the festival was a good reminder of the importance of Middle Eastern unity.
"They're facing genocide," he said of Syrian Christians. "We've lost many people."
Kakaty invited people from across New England and across all faiths to Sunday's picnic.
At a table under the tent behind the Cross Road church, members of a Syrian family who moved to New London in June ate beside Bishop Nicholas Samra, the leader of the Melkite Catholic Eparchy in Newton, Mass.
Samra gave the Sunday liturgy on the topic of love, Kakaty said.
"We have to love each other," he said.
"We are showing the world that Christians and Muslims have gotten along for centuries in the Middle East," Kakaty added, after greeting each attendee with a hug or a handshake.
Some were mostly there to dance.
Hilda Zeigler, of Gales Ferry, was at St. Ann as a volunteer with the group called Start Fresh, which is working with Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services to help resettle refugees and immigrants to the area.
She had driven the Kabny family, who moved to New London in June, to the church as a break from doctor appointments and English lessons, and took the opportunity to dance enthusiastically in the grass to the live music, urging other attendees to join her.
Zeigler said she was happy to see people eating together in peace and enjoying the music.
"This is what the whole world needs," she said.
Comment threads are monitored for 48 hours after publication and then closed.