By Ellie Brogan
Wayland Post Intern
St. Philopater and St. Mina Coptic Orthodox Church on Rice Road hosted a festival showcasing Egyptian and Coptic culture from May 23 to May 26, 2025. The festival included different elements, from a church tour that explained Coptic Orthodoxy and its traditions to a wide variety of food. Attendees could take photos in an Egypt-themed photo booth, get their faces painted, and enjoy Turkish coffee.
“ It’s a good introduction for our culture,” says Christine Bekheet, one of the festival organizers. Having begun in 2023, the original festival was a fundraiser for renovations and other costs but quickly ballooned into a much larger event and now draws parishioners from across the state, as far as Worcester and Gloucester.
Under a massive white tent, tables of food lay spread out, ranging from kibda, a dish made with beef liver, to shawarma, seasoned meat with vegetables and sauce. Sugarcane juice was made through a press that converts whole sugarcane into juice, leaving a compressed stalk to fall into a trash can. Containers of baklava and phyllo dough-topped pastries lined tables.
“It takes about two to three months to prepare for this,” said church priest, Father Youhanna Gobran.
The Coptic Orthodox Church is an ethno-religion founded in 42 A.D. by St. Mark. The religion split from Christianity in 415 A.D due to theological differences. Since then, followers of the Coptic Church, “copts” or “Coptics”, have become the largest minority in Egypt. The Coptic language evolved from the hieroglyphic language of the ancient Egyptians, from which many Coptics are descended, said Marina Ebrahim, who was giving tours of the church. “It’s a religion but also a very vivid culture,” said Ebrahim.
Nine years and growing
Founded in 2016 after the Church of the Holy Spirit, an Episcopal church, closed in 2015, St. Philopater and St. Mina Coptic Orthodox Church has rapidly grown to include at least 200 families, creating a vibrant community. The interior of the church is lined with paintings and artwork of saints and martyrs, alongside sections of holy text written in English and Arabic.
St. Philopater and St. Mina Coptic Orthodox Church is not the only church in the region to host a festival like this. “ St. Mark [Coptic Church] in Natick does one [and] it’s only for one day,” says Behkeet. “At Attleborough, there is a Holy Family Coptic church. They did their festival last week, only for Sunday.”
The church intends to carry on the tradition. “ We would like to continue and be more famous,” says Bekheet, who added that she would also like to expand the outreach of the festival to other towns.
