The Great Blessing of the Waters

At Theophany the Church blesses water, and it is the one blessing of the year that is done twice, at the Liturgy of the eve and again on the day, often at a river or the sea with a cross thrown into it. The prayer does not ask God to make the water holy as a symbol: it asks Him to send down the grace of the Jordan, since it was by being baptised that Christ sanctified the waters and crushed the heads of the dragons lurking in them. The water is taken home and kept, and the tradition that it does not spoil is old enough to be recorded by St John Chrysostom in a Theophany homily.