Today, January 6, is the Feast of the Epiphany. It’s an important holiday in the Christian calendar, although Christmas tends to overshadow it. The holiday is sometimes called Twelfth Night, and it marks the last of the Twelve Days of Christmas, memorialised in one of the less attractive Christmas carols. Though a Christian holiday, it celebrates different things depending on whether it’s Western Christianity or Eastern Christianity. And there are different rituals for each. In the Western tradition, Epiphany celebrates the visit of the wise men to the Christ Child. (Fun fact: although today everyone thinks of the three wise men, the gospels do not mention their number. They do mention three gifts, so eventually the wise men became three as well – because what kind of wise man doesn’t show up without a gift for the messiah?)
In the Eastern tradition, Epiphany celebrates the baptism of Christ. Since he was not baptized until his public ministry began, he would have been 30 at the time. So in this tradition there is no connection with Christmas. But there is a connection with water (baptism), and that brings us to the way Epiphany is celebrated in Greece and Cyprus. The ceremonies revolve around the blessing of the waters. The priest blesses the waters and then throws a cross into them, which purifies them. Once he has done this, a select group of men (women now participate too) dive into the waters to retrieve the cross. The one who retrieves it is given a reward.
The morning was overcast when we arrived at Ayia Napa church in Lemesos Old Town around 8.15. We could hear the priest intoning from a considerable distance away, and so we sat in the churchyard for a bit. When it was clear that the service was nowhere near complete, we went off a had coffee while keeping our ears opened. We returned about 9.00. Surely the service would be ending soon. Alas, no. After a while a number of band members began to show up. They trickled in little by litte. Then the bells rang. And finally at 10.45 the procession got going.
The procession wound along the street and then crossed over to the promenade that runs by the water. A band preceded the priests and the people mingled in with them. Incense filled the air. Once they got to the water, the procession continued out to the end of one of the piers. There were already boats in the water to watch over the happenings, and a police boat or two in case anything went wrong. By this time it was a beautiful sunny late morning.
Young and old swimmers, mostly men but a few women, all mingled on the pier before plunging into the water and awaiting the priest’s cast. Once he threw it, they all made a beeline for it, and within a very short time one of the younger men came up with it. There was applause all around. The swimmers then handed the cross around, each of them kissing it and giving it to the next person. And then everybody but us sang a hymn, and the priests threw flowers down onto the swimmers.
End of event! People mingled on the pier for a while longer, taking pictures of themselves and others. The priests headed back to Ayia Napa, no doubt to rest their lungs after two and half hours of chanting. And we ourselves headed over to lunch at a local place nearby, happy to have taken part in a beautiful and memorable ceremony.
