Karlo Irakli Tarinas receives a gift necklace from Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios after retrieving a wooden crucifix from the cold waters of the Golden Horn off Istanbul, during the Epiphany celebrations there yesterday.

ISTANBUL (AFP) - Turkish nationalists chanting slogans and waving the flag of an extreme right-wing party yesterday tried to disrupt a Greek Orthodox religious ceremony here called the benediction of the waters of the Bosporus.

As part of a tradition dating back to Byzantine times, a crucifix is thrown into the waters and young divers plunge in, competing to recover it. Some 60 nationalists interrupted the proceedings waving flags of the National Action Party (MHP) and chanting, “This is Turkey here, like it or leave it.”

Hundreds of members of Istanbul’s Greek Orthodox community attended the ceremony held every January 6 on the banks of the stretch of water known as the Golden Horn, which cuts into the western side of the Bosporus dividing the city’s European and Asian sides. Police held the intruders back, and they later made an equally unsuccessful attempt in fishing boats to invade the section of water where the ceremony took place.