St. Symeon Orthodox Church
Diocese of the South, Orthodox Church in America
3101 Clairmont Avenue S, Birmingham, AL, 35205
Welcome!

Join us on Saturday, October 12, 2024, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. for our sixth annual St. Symeon Food and Culture Fair!

~~~

The St. Symeon Food and Culture Fair is our way of sharing our multi-ethnic community with the city of Birmingham and surrounding areas. Come visit our church building, learn about the iconographic murals being painted in the church (including new murals covering the nave,) as well as the landmark tile mosaic icon overlooking Clairmont Avenue. While visiting, enjoy a presentation by our internationally acclaimed choir and don’t forget to shop at our one-day-only multi-ethnic marketplace.

Marketplace
Shop for homemade baked goods, unique gifts, original artwork, traditional Orthodox and multicultural gifts and souvenirs, and more, and have your breakfast, tea time or coffee break with us in the marketplace at the St. Symeon Food and Culture Fair! For one fun day, we’re transforming our property into a traditional open-air market. Our members have formed five baking teams that loosely align with their diverse ethnic heritages, and each team will feature its homemade baked goods at a decorated booth in the marketplace. In addition to baked goods, the market stalls and gift shop will offer coffee, tea, and merchandise such as original watercolor artwork, jewelry, scarves, and crafts. The church youth group will be selling soft drinks as well.  
The Marketplace will accept cash as well as Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover credit or debit cards (no checks). 

 

Our outdoor marketplace tent this year features five booths: the Middle Eastern Market; the Balkan Bakery; Babushka's Kitchen (a new name for the always-popular Slavic booth); Southern Sweets & Savories; and Cafe Europa. The booths will have baked goods and other food items as well as art and other gifts!
You will not want to miss the Opa! Kabana loukoumades tent! We will be serving up made-to-order Greek honey puffs there (a/k/a Hot Greek Donuts). You can get them in traditional cinnamon or chocolate and they are always a big hit.

The Slavic Tea room will be returning with hot Slavic tea from the samovar as well as kompot, a Slavic fruit drink, that was a big hit at last year's fair.

As always, we will have thousands of homemade pierogi. We'll be serving them hot with onions and sour cream in our lunch line, as well as sausage rolls -- hoagie rolls stuffed full of sausage and kraut. Have lunch with us! Frozen pierogi are also available by the dozen from Babushka's Kitchen in the tent marketplace.

Come join us at the St. Symeon Food & Culture Fair on Saturday, October 12, from 9-3!

Church Tours, Sacred Music, Iconography Talks

Self-guided and host-facilitated church tours will be ongoing throughout the Food and Culture Fair. Our worship space is now entirely covered in floor-to-ceiling iconographic murals and we invite you to tour the church any time throughout the fair. We have three programs inside the church this year: our first church program is a talk about St. Symeon The New Theologian by Father Alexander Fecanin at 10:30 a.m.

Our second church program is the always highly anticipated choir concert at 11 a.m. This year's concert is titled "This is the Day That the Lord Has Made," and will feature hymns from the Resurrectional weekend services.

Our other church program during the fair is our annual "What is Iconography?" talk with Fr. Protodeacon Ephraim Rivers at 1 p.m. Now that our iconography is almost complete, don't miss this talk to learn about the role of sacred art in the church and to see key biblical scenes illustrated on the church ceilings.

Our Social Media

Our social media are full of photos of products we’re selling at the Food and Culture Fair, interesting articles, and other tidbits. We’d be honored if you’d follow us:

Facebook

Instagram

The Food & Culture Fair will be a Snapchat Geofilter Zone, and we’d love for you to share photos from the fair social media. Our hashtag is #stsymeonfair24.

Come, Taste & See!