By T. Bennison

For many of us, the holidays have long since passed. Our trees are out browning by our mailboxes in beds of needles and tinsel and our lights hang limply from the eaves as pathetic reminders of our laziness. The moderately religious of us have set Easter aside as our next church visit, but in the Greek enclave of Tarpon Springs on Florida’s west coast, preparations are getting underway for the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6th.

According to the Eastern Orthodox Church, Christmas is small beans compared to Epiphany, which marks the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River by St. John, and with the first physical manifestation of the Holy Trinity that day, the moment when Jesus was revealed to be the Son of God. Deep theological debate aside, before his baptism Jesus was, to some, simply another child, and Epiphany, a “shining forth” or “revelation” in Greek, is a celebration of his true, spiritual birth. Whether you’re religious or not, the Epiphany festival is a fascinating manifestation of Tarpon Springs’ Greek identity and a great excuse to visit one of the most unique communities in Florida.

In what has been recognized as the oldest and largest Epiphany celebration in the country, this year’s event will draw some 30,000 visitors to the city beginning on January 4th with the arrival of...ahem...Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Archbishop of Constantinople and spiritual leader of the whole of Orthodoxy, followed by his unprecedented presiding over the big day on the 6th. In downtown’s St. Nicholas Cathedral, a replica of St. Sophia in Istanbul (modern-day Constantinople), an Orthros, or early morning prayer service is given, followed by a procession to nearby Spring Bayou, where 30 to 40 young men sprint to the edge of the dock there to dive for a cross flung in by His Eminence.

According to a tradition which some say hearkens back to a time when the Greeks worshipped Poseidon, the diver who retrieves the cross will enjoy a year’s worth of good luck for himself and his family. During the following two-day glendi, essentially a huge street party, Tarpon Springs sheds its image as a kitschy roadside curiosity and emerges as a vital Greek-American community, the largest in America, but along the docks and many shops lining the main drag of Dodecanese Boulevard, the root of the city’s touristy reputation is laid bare: in the form of the humble sponge.

Named for the abundance of tarpon leaping out of the surrounding gulf, Tarpon Springs was first settled in the 1860s as a popular winter destination for wealthy industrialists, but it didn’t become a proper city until the 1880s when Hamilton Disston, a saw manufacturer from Philadelphia, bought a resort hotel and, in what remains the largest land transaction by any individual in the U.S., purchased the 6,000 square mile area well before Flagler left his stamp on the state.

When some fishermen dragging the waters along the coast found sponges in their nets, the sponge business shifted its center from Key West, Cuba and the Bahamas to untapped Tarpon Springs. In 1896, Greek-American sponge buyer John Corcoris came to the area in hopes of making sponging more efficient and ended up revolutionizing the industry. In addition to utilizing some of the first mechanized sponge fishing boats, he opened up the more plentiful sponge beds in the deeper offshore waters by introducing the rubberized diving suit. Before then, fishermen plucked sponges from the safety of their boats with long, pronged poles. Corcoris’ 170 lb. suit, weighted down with brass fittings and a bulbous copper helmet fed by an air hose, enabled divers to reach depths of 100 feet and remain at the bottom for up to two hours at a time.

Word of the innovation reached Greece, drawing fishermen from Kalymnos, Halki, Hydra, Spetse, and other Aegean islands where the practice predates Christianity, and by the 1930s over 200 boats plied their trade from the natural harbor at the meeting of the Anclote River and the Gulf. A red tide algae bloom in the ’40s which wiped out much of the sponge population coupled with the advent of mass-produced synthetic sponges threw Tarpon Springs into a slow decline. By the time the sponge beds began to recover in the ’60s, the city had learned to survive on its colorful past as a tourist draw.

The businesses established to serve the Greek community still flourish, and the many restaurants, cafes, and tavernas are reason enough to visit the town, Archbishops tossing crosses notwithstanding. If you’re going to eat Greek anywhere in Florida, this is the place. The air wafting over brick-paved Dodecanese is heavy with the scent of grilled lamb, souvlaki, and flaming cheese and the sheer number of blue-awninged eateries is just as dizzying. Locals will argue for days over who serves up the most authentic cuisine, so your best bet is to find your own favorite eatery by trying a little bit from each. It’s hard to miss the famous Louis Pappas’ at the head of Dodecanese Boulevard, but at more pedestrian places like Mykonos you’ll find a better Greek Salad. A smattering of Santorini’s lamb platter and a dash of Mama’s pastitso finished off with the tiny Plaka’s dolmades (stuffed grape leaves) and a glass of retsina will far surpass any one dinner plate. Wherever I eat, I always forgo dessert and head to the Apollo or Hellas bakeries for fresh Greek pastries, rich coffee, and baklava.

Nearby, on the site of the old sponge exchange where fishermen once auctioned off their catches, is a white-washed plaza full of shops where you can find all manner of nautical items like nets, glass buoys, brass fixtures, and Greek captain’s hats, while others on the boulevard sell a wide array of Greek music, shirts, shells, painted icons, and, of course, sponges of all shapes and sizes. If you leave Tarpon Springs without buying one, you’re crazy. Some purport to be from the area (which raises their price considerably), but regardless of their origin, they’re far better than any synthetic knock-off and when cared for, prove to be a worthy, multi-purpose investment.

A sponge is actually the skeletal colony of millions of single-celled organisms and is slimy and black when raised from the water’s surface. The familiar everday sponge is dried out, hand-beaten and scraped of detritus, then rinsed and dried again before being placed on the shelf, something I found out from the informative, though aging Sponge-O-Rama Museum at 510 Dodecanese Blvd. Inside, the exhibits trace the life of the sponge and recounts the history of its cultivation, and the $7, 1/2 hour boat ride from St. Nicholas Boat Lines fills in all the gaps with a diving demonstration and a pleasant little tool down the Anclote. Further down at the Konger Tarpon Springs Aquarium, you’ll find an impressive 12,000 gallon shark tank, feeding shows, living sponges in their reproduced habitat, a sting ray petting tank, and three 7 ft. gators. At $5.25 for admission, you can’t go wrong.

Back with the crowds on the street thronging and bouncing to the sound of bouzoukis, the festival can be overwhelming and detract from an in-depth, methodical exploration of the city, but any true Floridian should experience the event at least once in his or her lifetime. Whenever you decide to go, a day’s dive into Tarpon Springs is simply epiphanous.