{"id":3559,"date":"1975-01-01T10:10:00","date_gmt":"1975-01-01T10:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/?p=3559"},"modified":"2022-07-25T10:23:14","modified_gmt":"2022-07-25T10:23:14","slug":"with-exceeding-great-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/1975\/01\/01\/with-exceeding-great-joy\/","title":{"rendered":"With Exceeding Great Joy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Feast of the Epiphany commemorates the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. It celebrates the end of the twelve day journey of the three kings sent by Herod to search out the infant King of the Jews, following the Christmas star ’till it came and stood over where the young child was’, and
‘they rejoiced with exceeding great joy’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sketch by Paul Valassakis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Traditionally the sixth of January has been a day of gift giving – gold, frankincense and myrrh from the kings, all those partridges and pear trees from the generous lover of the song, sweets and other lesser treasures for ordinary children, particularly in southern Europe. In Greece gifts are particularly given from godparents to their godchildren – it was on Epiphany that John the Baptist baptized Christ – and the priests visit homes for the annual blessing of the premises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greeks rejoice ‘with exceeding great joy’ because Epiphany marks the conclusion of the twelve dangerous days of Christmas, when seamen fear traveling on the unhallowed waters and the dreaded Kallikantzari, centaur-like mythical monsters, roam freely on earth and get up to all sorts of vicious mischief. Until recently, perhaps even now, in many parts of Greece villagers dress up with masks and dozens of bells to frighten away the fearful Kallikantzari.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But all this changes on the eve of Epiphany with the ‘First Blessing’ in church, and then the tremendous blessing of the waters on the day of Epiphany itself. A wish made the previous evening must come true, because the gates of heaven stand open; the waters of the sea become sweet; the wind blows mild; the very oxen’ in their stables have been said to speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Piraeus, as elsewhere in Greece, Epiphany is celebrated by throwing a cross into the sea, which boys dive to retrieve. Whoever finds it is blessed with luck throughout the coming year, blessed particularly with luck not to come down with pneumonia after a swim in chilly January, or some frightful disease from the foul waters of Piraeus. ‘Ye dragons and all deeps’ are traditionally merciful to Epiphany divers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Piraeus, as the principle port of Greece, usually bags the brightest clerical stars to officiate at the ceremonies – plural ceremonies because not one but several crosses are thrown, one in each of the harbours in the area. It is a fine ceremony, second only to Easter in crowds, excitement, and noise. All the yachts, Greek and foreign, ‘dress ship’, flying lines of signal flags from stem to masts to stern. Times are announced and altered because of mysterious impediments, archbishops lost in traffic, delayed dignitaries. Crowds grow, disperse, reform. Pistachio venders rejoice. Whole families float round in dinghies, the babies perching perilously on gunwales. Little children are lost, howl, are retrieved by neighbours and policemen. Fathers’ shoulders stoop under the weight of their offspring. Bands play, sometimes within earshot of each other. It never seems to rain on Epiphany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At last, when one wonders if the whole thing has not happened and been overlooked, the band stops and the senior priest begins the ceremony. In Piraeus many of the prayers will be sung, with microphone – in a village it is all much simpler. A table will be sprad with the holy necessities; important people from church and government crowd around, shuffling silently for the best places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ceremony is brief. At the end, which is always a surprise, the priest throws the cross. into the sea. In the murky waters of the Tourkolimano and Passalimani, the cross is attached to a string, which seems a bit of a cheat. On the other hand, the harbour bottoms are a solid mass or objects one could never hope to retrieve because of the undersea fog of pollution and a cross is not something one wants to be lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The boys strip off their winter coats and diver while the crowd shivers and gasps with astonishment, as if it were all very unexpected. The lucky diver retrieves the cross and surfaces. He is welcomed, dried, congratulated, clothed, and blessed. He may be given gifts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Girls never dive. The Epiphany ceremony is not involved with Women’s Lib.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The crowd melts. Waiters and proprietors of the Tourkolimano restaurants smile in the streets, anticipating one of their biggest days in the year. The last lost children are sorted out. Epiphany is over for another year. The waters are safe again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Celebration of the Epiphany<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":3560,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3561,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3559\/revisions\/3561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}