‘It’s amazing to share our culture’: Hamden church holds annual Egyptian Festival

Many smiles and the smell of Egyptian cuisine filled the Virgin Mary and Archangel Michael Coptic Orthodox Church in Hamden this weekend as the church held its annual Egyptian Festival.

“Every year we see more people,” festival volunteer Maria Salib said. “I think people like to see other cultures and taste other food and stuff like that. This year we’ve seen so many people from outside of the church… It’s amazing to share our culture.”

In addition to the food, the event boasted a number of activities, including church tours, a themed photobooth, vendors and an outdoor play area for children. 

“It’s amazing to see everyone working together,” Salib said. “We’ve been preparing for this for two weeks before the event, cooking lots of food, doing preparation, shopping, everything.”

Hundreds of people attended the 10th annual festival, a far cry from where the church began in 1986: in a much smaller building with only six families. 

Today, that number has grown to around 120 families across four churches, growth that tangibly translates into the large number of volunteers at the festival.

“(The festival) has two great things about it: one is the way our congregation comes together for its church and the effort they put in,” Father Bechoi Saleib said. “They want to share not only their culture but also their faith, and it’s a beautiful thing to see.”

Mark Kamel, an international student from Egypt, drove an hour from the University of Connecticut for the event, which he says he’s been “waiting all year” to attend.

“I was really excited,” Kamel said. “I’ve been to the festival last year and it was amazing, so this time I was really excited to go again.”

Kamel said the joy of everyone at the festival is what makes it special and drove him to come back for the second-straight year.

“The people who come to this festival are just amazing, amazing people,” Kamel said. “Everyone’s happy, everyone’s smiling … I see people from all around, I see Americans, like not just Egyptians coming here, I think it’s very interesting.”

Showcasing Egyptian culture to outsiders was a driving force in the festival’s creation, giving the church a bigger foothold in the Hamden community at large.   

“We may be hidden as Egyptians, per say, but we’re definitely in the community,” Saleib said. “(The festival is) for people to see who we are and what kind of people we are, our kindness and our hospitality, which is something very Egyptian.”

Coptic Orthodox is the second largest Christian community in the Middle East, accounting for an estimated 10% of the Egyptian population, according to the Vatican.

“The modern definition (of Coptic) is Christian Egyptian,” Saleib said. “However, the Copts are the descendants of the pharaohs, so we are the natives of Egypt and we’re Christian.”

Among the vendors and presenters at the festival was Christina Kalta, a member of the church who spent the two-day event preserving Coptic history by teaching attendees about iconography. 

“Iconography is basically our windows into heaven as Orthodox Christians,” Kalta said. “In our American culture, we say ‘A picture’s worth a thousand words,’ which is basically the theology of an icon summed up.”

Coptic iconography is the geometric art that adorns the walls of churches like Virgin Mary and Archangel Michael. Kalta says the art holds much more meaning than most realize. 

“I think people are more surprised to know that iconography is more than just pretty pictures to decorate a church,” Kalta said. “Our Coptic iconography is directly derived from Quranic art, so they don’t realize the link between our Quranic world as Egyptians and our Christian world as Egyptians.”

Kalta and other church members hope that the yearly festival will continue to teach those from Hamden, and throughout Connecticut, about Egyptian culture and its presence in the state. 

“A lot of people may think that because they’re not Egyptian or because they don’t speak Arabic or can’t read Coptic that the Coptic church doesn’t have much to offer them,” Kalta said. “But the festival is one of hopefully many times a year that we can open our doors, even though our doors are open all the time, and kind of show them who we are and show them our heart.”