Large crowd turns out for first night of Serbian festival

“A Taste of Serbia” will continue today at St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Church in McKeesport.

Parishioners and area residents gathered Friday night at St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Church to enjoy Serbian ethnic classics and indulge in Serbian culture.

Opening day proved to be busy, with customers enjoying sarma, Serbian-style cabbage rolls, cevaps, grilled skinless sausages served with diced onions and pita bread, and burek, a meat and cheese pie in phyllo dough, among other dishes.

The festival is part of the parish’s 125th anniversary, with an official celebration set sometime in November.

“Our Taste of Serbia is a recent event. It’s a wonderful food festival for two days,” Rev. Stephen Rocknage said. “We have a whole slew of, what we call Lenten food, as well as non-Lenten food and all kinds of delicacies and baked goods.”

The festival brings together people of all ages, and Rocknage stated that fellowship among older and younger generations is necessary to maintain tradition and cultivate a welcoming environment in the church.

“For me as the parish priest, the wonderful thing is the fellowship,” he said. “This has really helped bring our parish, our old and our young, together. The customers, the clientele and the community have been wonderful. One guy even jokingly said today, ‘We decided, you guys need to open up a restaurant.’” St. Sava Church began its annual “A Taste of Serbia” in 2020 after changes to parking and difficulty transporting equipment and supplies forced the church to stop participating in the International Village festival. St. Sava Church was one of International Village’s charter members and participated in the multi-cultural celebration for 60 years.

“It became such an obstacle to transport food from here up to there, and then they cut down the parking spaces and we had to walk stuff half a block. It didn’t work,” Rocknage said.

St. Sava’s festival takes four months of preparation, as Rocknage and members of the parish dedicate one week for each item they plan to prepare. Rocknage stated that establishing schedules helped church members maintain organization and keep track of the food they prepared.

“We start in the summertime,” Rocknage said. “We have a week to do cabbage rolls, sarma, we have a week to do the halushki. We get our cevaps, which is ground pork, lamb, and beef together. All the stuff gets frozen and we bring it out the week of. The fish we do the week of.

“So it’s a whole four months of preparation time. We have schedules so people know, like ‘this week in July, we’re doing this, this week in July, we’re doing this,’ and thank God it’s worked out.”

Rocknage felt thankful to God for being able to witness both the church’s 125th anniversary and multiple generations of parishioners. Rocknage had been the priest for two of McKeesport’s mayors so far in his 39 years of ministry.

Second Vice President of Parish Council Jim Brady reflected on the difficulties that arose during 2020. With an unfamiliar pandemic and difficulties with participating in International Village, St. Sava Church had to make immediate changes to how it operated its annual celebrations to continue building steady converts and community engagement.

Brady said that when the pandemic lockdowns first began, many people lined up around the church to seek community and Serbian cuisine during the church’s first-ever “A Taste of Serbia.”

Brady felt that the pandemic years were a crucial time for the parish to build its ability to engage with the community. Once the pandemic lockdowns were lifted, Brady stated that the amount of church parishioners and event attendees grew because of increased social media presence on Facebook, where like counts reached 1,300 and event confirmations over 200.

Brady felt that the church was able to have similar event attendance as larger Greek Orthodox parishes in McKeesport. Brady felt that, with live music from Orchestra RADOST set to perform today, more people will come to the church.

“I would say it grew,” Brady said. “We also do fish fries during Lent, as most parishes do, and we built a steady following over time. It was mostly because of the quality of our food, but also because of our hospitality. If you noticed, our people are very friendly, very outgoing and very hospitable. We do our best to accommodate and be welcoming.”

Website and social media administrator Marco Lukacs stated that the church’s online presence has drastically improved since its pre-COVID baseline. Lukacs felt that people in the Mon Valley wanted to engage more with their Serbian heritage after the pandemic lockdowns had lifted.

Sari Evanovich McNamara has been volunteering at “A Taste of Serbia” for six years. McNamara is a descendant of four Serbian grandparents, who immigrated from what was Austria-Hungary to America, where they joined a Serbian Orthodox church. McNamara stated that the best part of the festival is seeing the preservation of Serbian tradition first-hand.

McNamara expressed her excitement for the live music performance set for today. She felt confident that the music will draw in more people and create an even more fun atmosphere for all who attend.

“The live music brings another element to the event, it excites people and it brings people who want to just hear the music and dance who would not necessarily attend, so we’re happy to have that,” McNamara said.

Donna Kresovich Vranesevic has been volunteering since the event began in 2020. She stated that the pandemic years involved a very difficult shift in how the church serves the community.

“It was different,” she said. “It was hard to get used to it, but then it ended up being easier because we didn’t have to transport food and everything is here. And it feels more homey with everybody coming here.

“This is the only Serbian nationality food that’s being served, so everybody’s enjoying themselves. It’s kind of nice being private, but we do miss being in an international village, too. It’s just that our parishioners are older and we can’t do both.”

Vranesevic felt having “A Taste of Serbia” at the church drew her, and attendees, closer to God and the welcoming atmosphere of the church.

“‘It gives us the opportunity to have music, which we couldn’t have up there, and Father Stephen gives tours of the church. So for a lot of people in the community, the light bulb goes on and they say, ‘Wow, I didn’t know it looked like this.’ It’s nice to bring the community into our home.’” Vranesevic was involved in every preparation process for “A Taste of Serbia.” She stated that the rewarding feeling of getting to serve the community something she helped prepare was the most rewarding part of volunteering for Taste of Serbia.

“We came here on Tuesdays to make either strudel, nut rolls or palacinke,” Vranesevic said. “So we build up to this. This is the finale, and that’s exciting to us. All of our hard work was before, and now all we have to do is serve our hard work.”

Vranesevic’s husband, Dave Vranesevic, and brother-in-law, Dan Vranesevic, are both part of Orchestra RADOST. She views today’s performance as a chance to show her non-Serbian friends a new type of cultural music they might not have been exposed to before.

Today’s events will take place from noon to 7 p.m., with a performance by Orchestra RADOST from 3 to 7 p.m. and a 50/50 drawing to be held sometime during the festival.