Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation

“Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation” is a liturgical expression heard during the Theophania ceremony. Its image joins water with salvation and joy, giving the ritual’s central element a meaning beyond its physical presence in the sea.

Language and Imagery

The phrase presents drawing water as an act of gladness and deliverance. In the ceremony, that image is followed by the priest’s petition: “Let us beseech the Lord for this water that it may be sanctified by the power and virtue and descent of the Holy Ghost …” The two utterances together make the water the focus of a request for blessing.

Place in the Ceremony

The priest’s words ring out over the sea, described as carrying like a mighty tidal wave. The setting gives the expression a striking physical counterpart: spoken above the water during a January ritual, it joins religious language to a public, embodied ceremony.

Narrative Resonance

The ceremony is presented alongside Giorgos’s overwhelming relief and sobbing as Leonidas holds him. The narrator interprets Mihalis’s reappearance as giving Giorgos an opportunity for renewal, “a second baptism.” Against that account, the phrase’s wells of salvation and joy resonates with the scene’s movement from long suffering toward the possibility of release; the expression supplies a spiritual register without making the ritual itself the cause of Giorgos’s vindication.