The 600kg donation that helped revive a treasured Greek community festival

On Sunday, Maria Pirpiris drove her family more than 100 kilometres to take part in a festival that years earlier her father had attended.

Not just any festival – the Stomping of the Grapes at the Greek Orthodox parish in Red Hill is a time-honoured celebration of the grape harvest. And participants had a stomping grape time in warm conditions.

Pirpiris advised her daughter Sumaya, 5, who joined children flattening a fountain-full of fruit, to stomp like an elephant.

The 600 kilograms of grapes being pulped throughout the day by eager children were bought and donated by a parishioner.

Pirpiris said her late father, George, a Greek migrant, often attended the Panagia Kamariani Greek Orthodox Church for its festivals.

Bringing her family from Campbellfield to follow in his footsteps, she said, “It’s important to keep the traditions alive. If no one comes, they won’t have the events.”

The parish, 85 kilometres south-east of Melbourne and named after an icon of the Virgin Mary, was founded on the Mornington Peninsula in 1977 in a farmhouse. The church opened in 1988.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the grape stomping festival, which has ancient roots, was held annually. On Sunday, the parish’s new priest, Father Irinaios Koikas, revived it as part of a broader renewal project.

“I felt that the community needed events like this, to come together,” he said.

Koikas said proceeds would go towards much-needed renovations to the church.

In a religious service held just before the festival kicked off, his eminence Metropolitan Ezekiel of Dervis blessed the harvest, and parishioners were given packets of grapes to eat.

The festival also included demonstrations by the folk dancing group Pegasus, a DJ playing Greek music, face painting and market stalls.

There were long queues at the church hall canteen to buy souvlaki and loukoumades.

Among parents watching the kids’ stomping efforts was Jim Haritos, who grew up in the 1970s and ’80s watching his father, Kostas, crush grapes by foot in tubs in the family backyard.

Haritos, of Brighton East, said that in his father’s village of Thanos on the island of Limnos, where Jim lived from 1994 to 2002, families would celebrate at grape harvest time.

He now wanted to show his six-year-old son, also named Kostas, the Greek traditions of his own childhood, including grape stomping, he said.

“It was good to see him do it,” Haritos said of his son. “He probably thought it was a bit strange. When he gets older, he can help us make some wine.”

Steve Sapounas and wife Lisa, from Dingley Village, who are both grandchildren of Greek migrants, brought their four children, Kristina, Dimitri, Yianni and Alexander for a family day and a taste of Greek culture.

“We thought we’d come and show the kids what it’s all about,” Steve said. “It looks like they had fun. I’m glad they can do it here, not at home … Here, they can step on as many [grapes] as they like.”

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