Today is Vodici

Today is the Orthodox Christian holiday Vodici. You can see my blog post from this holiday last year. We thought the cross throwing would be this morning at 10 a.m. so we went to the Vardar hoping to see it but they changed the times from last year.
http://ericjill.blogspot.com/2009/01/vodici-january-19th.html

I found some good information about Vodici on travel2macedonia.com.mk. The article below is from that website:

Religious holiday
Bogojavlenie - Vodici (Baptism of Jesus Christ)

Celebrated on Jan 19

One of the greatest Christian holidays, Vodici (Baptism of Jesus Christ), has been celebrated since the second century. In the river Jordan, Saint John the Baptist, baptized Jesus Christ.
This event is known as Bogojavlenie, because by the act of the baptism of God has finally appeared as Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The catch of the cross means unification of the human with Jesus Christ.
The tradition of throwing the Cross in Macedonia is old 20 years, while the holiday is being celebrated for more than 2000 years by the Orthodox Christians.
Celebration of the day of St. John the Baptist by performing a unique ceremony of throwing the cross into the waters of a lake or river.
During this unique event, the waters of the lake are being baptized by the high priest by throwing the cross into the water, but the real attraction is the people jumping into the cold waters of the lake trying to find the cross! The one who finds it is believed to be blessed for the whole of next year and becomes a kind of local hero. This event is accompanied by 30 to 40,000 guests every year and no wonder, since hot rakiya (grape spirit) is being served all over the places and for free!