Theophania at Piraeus
Theophania — the Greek Orthodox feast of the Baptism, marking the manifestation of the Trinity — is kept on 6 January; at Piraeus the liturgy is sung at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity and the cross is cast from the quay before the church of Saint Spyridon, with the principal Argo-Saronic ceremonies at Hydra, Spetses, Symi and Patmos.
Theophania, the Greek Orthodox feast of the Baptism of Christ, is kept on 6 January. The Greek name — Θεοφάνεια, “manifestation of God” — points to the doctrinal reading of the Baptism: the moment in the Jordan when, by Greek and Eastern Christian tradition, the Trinity is first manifested as three together — the Son in the water, the Father in the voice, the Spirit descending as a dove. The feast is one of the twelve Great Feasts of the Orthodox calendar, and the most public.
After the morning liturgy the priest carries the cross to the water for the Megas Aghiasmos — the Great Blessing of the Waters — and casts it into the harbour. Young men dive bare-armed for it in the January sea; the one who returns it to the priest carries the year’s blessing back to the church. The water from the blessing is taken home in small bottles to be sprinkled on rooms through the year.
At Piraeus, the country’s largest port and the seat of its principal ceremony, the morning liturgy is sung at the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, officiated by the Metropolitan of Piraeus, and the Great Blessing follows at the quay opposite the church of Saint Spyridon. In recent years the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece has presided at the water’s edge, with the President of the Republic in attendance.
The other principal ceremonies sit on the Argo-Saronic — Hydra (the harbour, with the divers descending from the breakwater), Spetses (the Dapia), Symi (the Yialos), Patmos (Skala). Thessaloniki holds its own on the Thermaic Gulf; Chania at the Venetian harbour. The water is between thirteen and fifteen degrees in early January.