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October 27-28, 2023
Southern Foodways Symposium ⟶
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October 27-28, 2023
Southern Foodways Symposium ⟶

Oral Histories

The SFA oral history program documents life stories from the American South. Collecting these stories, we honor the people whose labor defines the region. If you would like to contribute to SFA’s oral history collections, please send your ideas for oral history along with your CV or Resume and a portfolio of prior oral history work to info@southernfoodways.org.

< Back to Oral History project: Faith and Foodways in Alabama

ORAL HISTORY

Father Paul Costopoulos

Holy Trinity + Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Cathedral

Father Paul Costopoulos, born in 1946, grew up in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. His father immigrated to the United States in 1929, and his mother followed in 1935. His family owned the Famous Texas Restaurant in Carlisle. He and his siblings grew up working alongside their parents.

Costopoulos felt a calling to the priesthood early in life and after attending Gettysburg College, he went to seminary at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Theological School. He was ordained as a priest of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America in 1975. In addition to assignments in Huntsville, Alabama; Jacksonville, Florida; and Denver, Colorado, he served as Dean of Holy Trinity-Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Birmingham, Alabama from 1996 until his retirement in 2019. He has watched the Greek Food Festival at Holy Trinity-Holy Cross grow, and he continues to work at the festival every year.

Date of interview:
2019-09-01

Interviewer:
Michelle Little

Photographer:
Cary Norton

Download Transcript

“

“As Plutarch—the famous Greek of many years ago, prior to Christ—once said, "We go to the table not to eat but to eat together." So, eating for the Greeks is not only an event for satisfying physical need, but also for meeting a very real social need that we have for interaction with one another” - Father Paul Costopoulos

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