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Orthodox Observer - October 1996

Parish of the Epiphany City

TARPON SPRINGS, Fla. — For more than 50 years, this resort city of about 18,000 located some 20 miles northwest of Tampa has been synonymous with the celebration in the United States of Christ's baptism and St. Nicholas Cathedral serves as its focal point.

Each year for about 60 years crowds estimated in the tens of thousands attend the two-day ceremonies that include a hierarchical liturgy followed by a procession from St. Nicholas Cathedral to Spring Bayou for the dramatic dive for the cross by dozens of teen-age boys.

So important is the Epiphany celebration in this community that, in 1975, the Tarpon Springs Board of Commissioners designated the city as an official "Epiphany City" of the United States.

Yet this large community and major center of Greek ethnic life in the nation owes its existence to the lowly sponge, a primitive hermaphroditic creature that filters the equivalent of 64 glasses of water per day through its body.

The first Greek to settle in Tarpon Springs was John Cocoris, a native of the village of Leonidion, Kynourias, Greece, according to a parish history. He arrived in the United States in 1895 and is credited with founding the Greek sponge fishing industry and community of Tarpon Springs.

Cocoris brought his brother George from Greece in 1898 and another brother, Elias, in 1900. The brothers, at first employed by businessman John Cheney, developed a chemical process to bleach sponges collected from nearby beaches.

At that time, sponges were retrieved by hook-and-spear, a method used since the mid-1800s by residents of Key West and the Conch Indians. John Cocoris' dream was to introduce the special equipment used in the Greek islands to the fledgling sponge industry of Tarpon Springs.

He went back to Greece about 1903 and returned with a complete sponge crew from the island of Aegina. With a used fishing boat purchased for $180, the crew ventured out into the Gulf of Mexico with great success.

Soon they bought more boats and word of their progress spread to Greece. Other sponge fishermen arrived from Aegina, Hydra and Spetse, and from many of the Dodecanese islands, Kalymnos, Halki and Symi.

By 1905, 500 young men had arrived from these islands. Others came from elsewhere in the United States and Canada, establishing restaurants, grocery stores and the ever-present taverns and coffee houses that defined a Greek community in those days.

In 1907, the spongers formed a committee to establish a church and elected Nicholas Peppas of Aegina as the first president. He served as the driving force in the construction of the first St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church. The frame building had a seating capacity of 250 and cost about $3,500.

The parish received a charter

from the Church in Greece in 1908. However, after the organization of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America in 1922, St. Nicholas Church functioned as a separate community until 1976 when it received an Archdiocese charter after much prodding from Fr. Tryphon, the current dean. "They did not want to belong to the Archdiocese," he told the Observer. "They acted like an independent community."

From the parish's founding until 1922, six priests served the community. Then, in March of that year, the Rev. Theophilos Karaphillis came to Tarpon Springs from Kalymnos and for the next 32 years put his stamp on the community.

He established the first parochial school in the parish in 1925 with three teachers, five assistants and an enrollment of 200.

By the mid-1930s, the church building could no longer house the ever-growing membership. A new church was desperately needed, but it was the midst of the Depression and the community had only $20,000 in its treasury.

Again, the sponge fishermen came to the aid of their church. They formed a plan to donate the best sponges of their catch to the church which, in turn, would sell them to Greek sponge buyers at higher than market-value prices.

Through this method and from donations the parish raised the more than $150,000 needed to build a church.

Construction began in late 1941. The new edifice was planned as a replica of St. Sophia of Constantinople. About a year later, the building was completed and, in January 1943, Archbishop Athenagoras came to Tarpon Springs for the consecration during the Epiphany festivities. He proclaimed the new church "one of the most beautiful Orthodox churches in the world."

In 1954, Fr. Karaphillis retired, but remained active in the church until his death in 1963 at age 80.

With the development of synthetic commercial sponges following World War II, the local natural sponge fishing industry went into a long period of decline, but even today, there are eight or nine boats still active, according to Fr. Tryphon.

It was in 1960 that George Papageorgiou returned to the United States after an absence of six years, to complete his high school education in Tarpon Springs, where many family members lived.

His father, a medical doctor in Ohio who had retired to Rhodes, wanted him to further his education, recalled Elaine Tagarelli, a first cousin living in Tarpon Springs. "His father was a stickler for a great education and he had such great foresight," she told the Observer.

Ms. Tagarelli, one of 12 first cousins of Archbishop Spyridon in the Tarpon Springs area, remembers him as "an excellent student, fun-loving and pretty popular in school."

George lived with an uncle, George Tsourakis, who at the time was a city commissioner and went on to serve three terms as mayor.

Ms. Tagarelli also recalled that he took part in church activities and assisted the priest, but that no one had an inkling that he would enter the priesthood. "We all anticipated him being a doctor like his father," she said, adding, "we're in total awe of him right now."

Another cousin, Nicolette Henderson, was 9 years old when George graduated from high school in 1962. She remembers him as very soft-spoken, humble and caring. "He always had time for us," she said.

During his high school years, George played on the football team named, what else, "the Spongers." He was the place-kicker.

As was the case for the nation as a whole, the Sixties were a time of change for Tarpon Springs. One event in particular stands out in the annals of parish history. On Dec. 4, 1969, a cleaning woman noticed drops of moisture around the halo of the enclosed icon of St. Nicholas located inside the main entrance of the church.

Over the next few days, thousands of people came to witness the event. The phenomenon appeared again on Dec. 14. During his Epiphany visit in January 1970, Archbishop Iakovos examined the icon and said, "This may be a sign of the way the eternal God conveys his message to the believers and only time will reveal the message."

On another visit, in January 1976, the Archbishop elevated St. Nicholas Church to cathedral rank after the church joined the Archdiocese and received its charter.

Since coming to the parish in 1975, Fr. Tryphon, a native of Athens, Greece, has initiated many programs. The parish has acquired more land around its church building and its complex includes classrooms for a Sunday School of 235 students and a Greek school of more than 100 students. There is also a pre-school, Philoptochos office and a book store.

In addition to the revenues generated by the Epiphany-related events, which include a two-day glendi, the church budget is supported by a Greek festival the week before Great Lent, and dues of $88 for an individual, $154 per family, and $66 for retired persons.

Fr. Tryphon has seen many changes in the community since his arrival 25 years ago. Some changes he calls "traumatic." With a trace of nostalgia in his voice, he observed that "all those oldtimers are gone. They were beautiful people." He lamented that "the younger generation needs guidance. They think they know everything."

Serving the younger people in the community is the parish's assistant priest, Fr. Nicholas Samaras who, in addition to being a graduate of Holy Cross School of Theology, is an accomplished poet of national repute and a former faculty member at Columbia University and the University of Denver.

Compiled by Jim Golding

[ Orthodox Observer - Vol. 61, No. 1119 - October 1996 - p. 22 ]