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Reverend Ivan Dornic Slavic Heritage Festival
September 26 @ 11:00 am - September 27 @ 7:00 pm EDT
The Tamburitzans, America’s Longest-Running Multicultural Song and Dance Company, to Headline Reverend Ivan Dornic Slavic Heritage Festival
Free to attend, all-ages celebration of 13 Slavic cultures returns to Joppa September 26–27, marking the anniversary of founder Reverend Ivan Dornic’s passing, with proceeds supporting St. Mary’s Assumption Eastern Rite Church
JOPPA, MD: Organizers of the Reverend Ivan Dornic Slavic Heritage Festival announced today that The Tamburitzans, America’s longest-running multicultural song and dance ensemble, will headline this year’s festival, taking place September 26–27, 2026, from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. at St. Mary’s Assumption Eastern Rite Church, 2807 Mountain Road, Joppa, MD 21085. Admission is free and open to all.
Founded in 1937 and based in Pittsburgh, The Tamburitzans are the longest-running multicultural song and dance company in the United States. The ensemble’s cast, made up entirely of full-time college students performing on scholarship, brings folk music and dance from across Eastern Europe to the stage in elaborate costumes, backed by live tamburitza orchestras. Now in its ninth decade, the company has toured nationally and internationally for hundreds of thousands of audience members.
A Church He Saved, A Festival He Built
Reverend Ivan Dusan Dornic was born in Uyak (now Udol), Slovakia, in 1931 and left as a young seminarian in the 1950s to become a priest in the United States. His ministry brought him to the Baltimore area in 1977, where he organized the relocation and reconstruction of the historic St. Mark’s Catholic Church, board by board, when it faced demolition in the mid-1980s. It became St. Mary’s Assumption Eastern Rite Catholic Church, the small wooden church he shepherded for more than 35 years and where he launched the Slavic Heritage Festival, uniting the culture, music, dance and cuisine of all thirteen Slavic nations.
Father Dornic’s refrain, “If I don’t take them in, who will?” guided decades of work sponsoring immigrants, founding affordable housing for seniors and those in recovery, and helping establish the National Slavic Museum. He passed away on September 27, 2025, at the age of 94. This year’s festival, held September 26–27, falls on the anniversary of his passing and is the first held in his memory.
“My father left Slovakia as a young man to become a priest, but he never let go of where he came from,” said Yvonne Dornic, Reverend Dornic’s daughter and the festival’s organizer. “The Tamburitzans were always his favorite to watch. Headlining our first festival without him, for all thirteen of the communities he spent his life taking in, is us keeping his door open.”
Event Details
One weekend, thirteen cultures, endless hospitality. The festival celebrates Ukrainian, Polish, Slovak, Czech, Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Slovenian, Macedonian, Belarusian, Montenegrin and Lemko traditions through live music, folk dancing, authentic food, arts and crafts, vendors and family activities.