Brisk breezes and sunny skies greeted thousands of Greek Orthodox faithful and tourists as they descended upon the Spring Bayou in Tarpon Springs, Florida on January 6, 2025. Scuba divers circled the bayou, ensuring no manatees were harmed in the city’s renowned, 119th Epiphany cross dive.
A hallmark of Floridian Greek American culture, the dive commemorates the baptism of Christ in the Jordan River: after the Blessing of the Waters and the release of a dove, a cross in cast into the bayou and young men aged 16-18 dive into the waters to retrieve it.
Dinghies lining the bayou share the town’s story, bearing the names of community members of blessed memory or the islands from which they come, the “Halki,” “Kalymnos,” and “John Haskopoulos” just a few of the boats ringing the bayou.
Participating in the dive is something of which Greek Orthodox boys in the area dream, and becoming a cross retriever is a “responsibility,” according to 2024 retriever John Hittos. 17-year-old Hittos remarked that in offering advice to this year’s divers, he told them to “live in the moment, don’t be nervous, and just enjoy it because it goes by in a flash.”
The events began with the celebration of the Divine Liturgy at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral, with Archbishop Elpidophoros of America presiding. Addressing the divers and other liturgy attendees, His Eminence stressed that though the “submerging of [Christ’s] Holy Cross…is a sign of the healing presence of God,” “anything and everything can participate in the transfiguring love of God, because in the Epiphany of our Lord Jesus Christ, His Baptism unleashes the ‘mystical streams’ of the Holy Spirit throughout the cosmos.”
The annual celebration is organized and hosted by St. Nicholas Cathedral, but a few divers hail from other parishes in the Tampa Bay region.
George Xenick, a diver from St. John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church in Tampa, Florida, noted that as a third-time diver, he was accustomed to the majority-Tarpon Springs makeup of the group compared to the handful of Tampa divers.
Though the event is restricted to male divers, each year the St. Nicholas community selects one young woman from its choir to serve as the dove-bearer. Michalia Makryllos, this year’s dove-bearer, remarked that growing up as a “100% Greek, 100% Kalymnian” young girl in Tarpon Springs, she never imagined that she would have “such an important role” in the celebration.
After the completion of the Divine Liturgy, the Archbishop and his fellow clergymen – including His Eminence Metropolitan Sevastianos of Atlanta and Cathedral Dean Fr. Athanasios C. Haros – held an Agiasmos, or Blessing of the Water, before processing to the Spring Bayou.
There, Makryllos released a dove into the bayou, and Archbishop Elpidophoros cast the wooden cross into the waters. The boys immediately threw themselves into the water, and within moments shouts of “Axios!” began to emerge from the bayou as Luc Boillot, 17, surfaced with the cross held high.
Murmurs began to spread that the cross-retriever was the grandson of Fr. Tryfon Theophilopoulos, who served St. Nicholas Cathedral for thirty years.
Indeed, Boillot’s retrieval was made doubly blessed in that it was a family affair – just after he emerged from the bayou, Boillot shared a tearful embrace with his uncle Jerry Theophilopoulos, who retrieved the cross forty years ago today. Boillot recounted that he dreamed last night he’d retrieve the cross, and that sharing such a moment with his uncle was “[an] incredible emotional, spiritual feeling.”
Boillot’s mother Kathy Theophilopoulos Boillot expressed that the day was particularly meaningful given her family’s history in the community: in addition to Fr. Tryphon’s role in the parish and her brother Jerry’s cross-retrieval, another brother, Dean Theophilopoulos, retrieved the cross in 1984, making Luc the third cross-retriever in the family line.
In true Florida fashion, showers began to fall over the Epiphany celebrants as they dispersed from the Spring Bayou toward the Glendi festivities, but no rain could dampen the excitement of the Theophilopoulos-Boillot family and their proud St. Nicholas community.
Photo: Orthodox Observer/Brittainy Newman and Dimitrios Panagos
