On March 19, an Independence Day celebration was held in Cherry Hill Township.
Dozens of people marched up Mercer Street in Cherry Hill from St. Thomas Church to the Cherry Hill Municipal Building to celebrate the day. Students from St. Thomas’s after-school program led the procession.
Being in March, this wasn’t a celebration of the United States’ Independence Day. The group marching down Mercer Street was celebrating the 194th anniversary of Greece’s Independence Day.
A Greek Orthodox Church, St. Thomas consists of residents from Burlington, Camden and Gloucester counties. Emmauel Pratsinakis, pastor of St. Thomas, said the church has put on this Greek Independence Day celebration for 29 years.
The official date for Greek Independence Day is March 25 and commemorates the beginning of the War of Greek Independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1821. The war lasted until 1832.
Pratsinakis said the holiday has always resounded with Americans because of the similarities to the United States war for independence with the British.
“It was an American inspiration that you don’t have to take what is handed out to you,” he said.
St. Thomas commemorated the day last Thursday with a procession down Mercer Street. After proclaiming a short hymn called the doxology inside the church, members of the community marched out of the church, with the Greek and American flags leading the way.
During the presentation at the municipal building, Pratsinakis talked of how similar the themes of Greek Independence Day were to the United States’. Everyone was there to celebrate liberty and honor those who sacrificed their lives for Greece’s independence.
The after-school program is a big part of the Independence Day event. In addition to the procession, the school also holds an Independence Day show for the community.
Pratsinakis said, “It has songs and folk dancing.”
Pratsinakis said the kids at St. Thomas are very interested in learning about Greece’s history and embracing their heritage.
“The kids really have a keen understanding and appreciation they hail from Greece,” he said. “Some are 50 percent Greek, some are 10 percent and some are 1 percent. It’s phenomenal.”
The church community also participates in the Philadelphia Greek Independence Day parade on the Ben Franklin Parkway each year. This year’s event was scheduled for March 22. It features more than a dozen Greek Orthodox Churches from the Philadelphia metro area. After the parade, all of the church communities gather in Upper Darby, Pa.
The Cherry Hill procession holds a special place in Pratsinakis’ heart. As the church community marched, Pratsinakis mentioned how he loves seeing everyone come together. In addition to students from the after-school program, a number of parents and other church members came for the procession.
For a short time, everyone at the municipal building was Greek. Council president Dave Fleisher gave the church a proclamation in honor of Greek Independence Day and spoke of how so many discoveries and inventions throughout history originated from Greece.
At the end of the ceremony, sixth-grade student Katerina Poulathaz raised the Greek flag. As the flag rose higher in the air, the crowd began to sing the Greek national anthem. There was no mistaking where this small community hailed from.
“They’re very proud of their heritage, they’re proud of their lineage,” Pratsinakis said.
