Superstition? Maybe. But Nick Souder wants no part in helping his grandfather create the oaken prize.
By CANDACE RONDEAUX
Published January 4, 2004
[Times photo: Kinfay Moroti]
Epiphany cross divers Crosta Kontodiakos, 17, left, and Miltiadis Kerdemelidis, 16, help guide boats being towed to Spring Bayou in Tarpon Springs. Tuesday, 47 boys are expected to plunge into the water in search of the wooden crucifix. About 25,000 people are expected to attend the festivities.
TARPON SPRINGS - It's probably best not to talk about the cross.
Better not touch it, either. At least not until the big day. That's what Nick Souder figures.
Souder, 17, knows just about everything there is to know about the Epiphany day cross. He's spent years watching his grandfather, Bill Paskalakis, craft the oak crucifixes that have led dozens of daring boy divers down through the depths of Spring Bayou the first week of January.
Souder has helped his grandfather many times. He's sanded away the rough spots and watched as his grandfather poured hot lead into the cross so it will sink.
But this year is different.
"Now I don't even want to know anything about the cross," Souder said. "I don't even want to go near it."
It's not that he's superstitious. He just doesn't want any special breaks.
On Tuesday, Souder will make his second and final dive in the name of divine destiny. And if he emerges from Spring Bayou's chilly, brown waters, cross in hand, he knows there could be a lot of cheap talk. That's why the Tarpon Springs High School senior has carefully avoided his grandfather's home shop for a second straight year.
"I don't want to have any kind of unfair advantage," Souder said.
Paskalakis, a retired high school shop teacher, began making the wooden crosses more than 30 years ago. Before that, people say, the crosses were made of gold.
"They used to talk about how they lost that one," said his wife, Charlyn Paskalakis. "But they never did find it."
Some say it was pure gold. Others say it was encrusted with jewels. No one seems to remember what year the gold cross got lost out there in the bayou. Could have been 1968. Could have been 1954.
It was more likely lost in 1922 or 1923, said Nick Kavouklis. Kavouklis, 85, was raised in Tarpon Springs. He remembers some of the town's earliest Epiphany dives, when Greek immigrants first brought Eastern Orthodox Christian traditions to the city just after the turn of the 20th century.
"It got lost so they started using wooden crosses and painted them gold," Kavouklis said. "But people still kept looking for it. They used to dive for it all the time because it meant a lot of money to somebody."
Souder knows about the legend of the gold cross. But it's the wooden one he's after. Last year, he was this close to grabbing it, but didn't.
This year, the competition is stiff. Souder is one of 47 boys who have spent weeks preparing for the dive. Like all of the boys, Souder was required to write a personal essay about the meaning of Epiphany before taking the plunge.
"It's about how Jesus told everyone that no one would be above the sacrament," Souder said. "I think it's a time that we can all reflect on the last year we lived and try to live better."
It's a pretty simple message, one that's about 2,000 years old.
Epiphany celebrates Jesus' baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. Eastern Orthodox churches the world over observe the traditions of the 12th day after Christmas - a Divine Liturgy, a religious procession and a dive for the cross. But few rival the heady pomp found each year at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Tarpon Springs.
"It is a very special day," said the church's spiritual leader, the Rev. Tryfon Theophilopoulos.
Roughly 25,000 people are expected to show up for Tuesday's Epiphany day festivities, including Souder's girlfriend. She's not Greek, but that's okay.
"She understands what it's all about," Souder said.
Although the crowds usually make parking spaces tight, that won't be the the only space at a premium in the city on Tuesday. Portions of the walkway around the north side of the 400-foot-wide waterway will be closed to the public while the city continues to shore up the bayou's aging sea walls.
City work crews have been working around the clock to fill in holes and cracks in Spring Bayou's sea wall beneath the platform where the Archbishop Demetrios of New York and others in the church will stand during the ceremony. Most of the work on the first phase of the project has been completed, said city public services administrator Paul Smith.
"People will still be able to gather all the way around at the event but there will just be some restrictions on the sidewalk," Smith said. "We just feel it's prudent to be cautious."
City officials are not the only ones taking precautions before Epiphany. Mike Kouskoutis, a Tarpon Springs attorney and longtime resident, has helped organize safe dives for nearly 20 years.
"You've got 50 kids diving in all at once," said Kouskoutis, 46. "You don't want them diving on top of each other so you have to make sure they know the rules."
The rules are pretty simple: no Speedos, no shoving and no showing off.
"We just want to make sure they honor the tradition and spirit of Epiphany," Kouskoutis said.
That should be easy enough for Souder. Epiphany traditions are a way of life in his family.
"It's a pretty neat tradition that you get to share with all kind of different people," Souder said. "It's just a chance to try to start anew."
- Times researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this report. Candace Rondeaux can be reached at (727) 445-4181.
