Abu Dhabi: More than 10,000 people attended the annual Harvest Festival at Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (an Indian orthodox church) in the capital on Friday evening.
Along with church members, their friends of different nationalities visited a large number of stalls at the church premises, offering food, handcrafted art pieces and trinkets, different varieties of plants etc.
Children and adults enjoyed traditional Indian cuisines, games, and a variety of stage programmes, the organisers said.
Many of the student parishioners who had left Abu Dhabi for higher studies and seniors who had retired and settled in India make it a point to revisit the cathedral for the festival.
Yakob Mar Elias, metropolitan of the Brahmavar Diocese in Kerala, was the chief guest at the festival, which was inaugurated by Jiji Thomson, former Chief Secretary of Kerala.
Benny Mathew, vicar at the church, said: “We can proudly say that ours is the first church in UAE to have started the Harvest Festival, a celebration derived from the age-old tradition of celebrating the year’s harvest. It had a simple beginning in 1978 at the church premises in Khalidiya. Since then, this socio-cultural event is being celebrated every year,” he said.
Johnson Kattoor, joint general convener of the festival, said: “As part of Year of Zayed, we pay homage to the magnanimity of the late president and celebrate the hospitality and kindness of the rulers of this great nation.”
The proceeds from the festival will be used to meet the needs of the underprivileged and less fortunate people in the UAE and in India.
