Proceeds of annual Greek Festival fund ongoing restoration of historic church

POCATELLO – A church that has stood for more than than a century has received continuing upgrades, as it remains a place of worship week after week.

On Saturday, Pocatello’s historic Greek Orthodox Church held its 2025 Annual Greek Festival, which raises money for the parish to both upgrade and restore its facilities. Father Constantine Zozos expressed his appreciation for people who keep attending the festival and showing support for the church, with a congregation that he said has only been growing.

“We have … all kinds of foods that people must crave, because they keep coming back year after year and get more and more (people). And they’re very happy. It’s a wonderful, happy event, and we’re very happy that we get the support from the community,” Zozos said.

GALLERY: Historic church’s annual Greek Festival 2025

The festival got its start around 12 years ago, Zozos said, when he had just come to the Pocatello Parish. To raise funds for building improvements, some members of the congregation suggested the idea of holding a festival.

“I had a meeting with them. I said, this is the way it’s going to go. It’s going to be a one-day festival, a short day, and everything’s a-la-carte, and everything’s outside,” Zozos said.

And since then, the festival has continued to grow, now drawing in around 6,000 people a year. This has caused the parish to continue to make improvements and adjustments to the food line, like splitting it into two lines, adding more cash registers and most recently adding barcodes to the packaging on homemade pastries.

Funding raised from the festival, with some additional funding from the Idaho Historic Society due to the building’s historic status, has allowed them to make much needed improvements to their facilities.

Some of these include adding a brick fence around the church’s courtyard, bringing in a painter from Greece to add iconography to the walls and replacing the church’s ceiling, including the dome and bell tower.

“This church is 110 years old. We have done a lot of work to keep it up for another 110 years,” Zozos said.

In addition to this, the festival has also allowed the parish to install a commercial kitchen and up-to-date restrooms in the social hall.

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But there’s still more work to be done on the facilities. The parish hasn’t decided what project to undertake next, but the windows in the social hall need to be replaced, the plan to asphalt the property across the alley from the courtyard for additional parking and they’ve considered adding tiered seating in the balcony.

The parish has considered this because its congregation is growing, with Zozos estimating that around 200 people attend every Sunday.

Zozos also pointed out that the majority of the volunteers that attendees see at the festival are not ethnically Greek, with many joining the congregation in the last five years.

However, Zozos also said the congregation still has members who are ethnically Greek, and have had the recipes for the food they serve at the festival passed down to them from prior generations.

A sign posted in front of the festival’s pastry line echoed this sentiment.

“‘Greek pastries are what happens when you mix sunshine, butter, honey and centuries of joy. You’re not just eating dessert – you’re tasting history, generosity and the world’s best excuse to take a break and enjoy life.’ Opa!” the sign read.

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