TARPON SPRINGS - The teenage girls in the courtyard of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral Tuesday morning were giggling and whispering.
The boys who later would dive for the cross stood a few feet away, in white T-shirts and shorts, getting last-minute instructions.
The girls were waiting for the divers to pass, heading for the Blessing of the Waters.
Finally, the man lecturing the boys dismissed them and the boys strutted by. "Good luck!" female voices shouted to various divers.
Clad in a traditional Greek frock to dance in later at the Glendi festival, Maritsa Monokandilos, 15, and the rest of the girls were sidelined from diving for the cross, as always.
But Monokandilos, a Tarpon Springs High School sophomore, didn't feel she was missing out.
"It's the church rules," she started. Then her friends, also dancers in Levendia, a Tarpon Springs Greek folk-dancing group, jumped in.
"Cause Christ was a male," someone said.
"But girls can let the dove go," another girl interjected.
"It's tradition!" a third voice said.
A group of younger girls in ivory and white dresses do greet the archbishop when he comes to the church Epiphany morning, they said.
The young girls also get to accompany the four boys who carry the icon of Christ's baptism from the church to Spring Bayou, they said.
Plus, they pointed out, there's the dove a girl releases representing the Holy Spirit that the scriptures say descended on Jesus during his baptism.
Some girls at Epiphany Tuesday said that's as deep as women's roles should be.
"The women have always done other important roles in the church," said Arianae Tsavaris, 17, a junior at H.B. Plant High School and a Tampa resident. "We have to make the men feel important."
But some girls want to dive.
"I think girls should have the right," said Jenna Mingledorff, 13, of Tampa and a seventh-grader at the Cambridge School. "I really don't like the fact that boys are the only ones. I feel strongly about it."
St. Nicholas Cathedral only allows baptized males between 16 and 18 who are members of a local Greek Orthodox church to dive.
"Christ was a boy when he was baptized," said the spiritual leader of St. Nicholas, the Rev. Tryfon Theophilopoulos. "Plus the fights that are taking place under water are not an easy thing for girls."
Besides that, the water is just plain cold, said Jenna's mother, Kally Mingledorff.
Mingledorff didn't understand why her daughter, who was scheduled to perform traditional Greek dances later, would want to dive.
"You would want to freeze out there?" she asked her daughter.
Girls are tough enough to withstand the cold water and retrieve the cross, said Jenna's friend, Guiliana Gambetta, 13, a seventh-grader at Benito Middle School and a resident of New Tampa.
"Girls can do the same thing guys can," said Gambetta, also a Greek folk dancer. "We're welcoming boys to come to Greek dances. But they're not here."
At Epiphany, boys face limits, too.
"There are certain dances that the boys don't do," said Maria Angeliadis, Levendia's dance instructor. "Tapinos is done by the girls and it shows their coyness and shyness. It's a flirting dance."
Boys usually don't release the dove either, said Kaliope Mott, 13, an eighth-grader at Tarpon Springs Middle School and a Tarpon Springs resident.
"I'd rather be a dove bearer," Mott said. "I feel I got a blessing just to be able to hold the holy spirit in my hands. It was the greatest feeling."
