St. Nicholas Shrine Arises from the Ashes of Ground Zero

Among the staggering losses on 9/11/2001 suffered in the World Trade Center attack, two in particular command our attention and remembrance. One was a Franciscan friar and NYC Fire Department Chaplain Fr. Mychal Judge who died from falling debris from the collapsing South Tower of the World Trade Center as he was reportedly administering last rites to victims of the attack. The other was the Greek Orthodox church of St. Nicholas, located at 130 Liberty Street, extremely close to the World Trade Center complex. Unfortunately, the collapse of the South Tower demolished the church. We concern ourselves in this article with the latter. However, both losses are incredibly significant for Christendom in the Near East, Eastern Europe, and even the West, where so many religiously motivated murders have occurred.

The destruction of the tiny, much-loved Church of St. Nicholas happened when many regarded it as a spiritual oasis in the shadow of the tall buildings of lower Manhattan. In 1919 a group of five families purchased the small building a tavern for $25,000 and converted it into a church. (2) In 1922, they began to hold worship services for Greek American Orthodox Christians.

(3) For approximately 79 years, the St. Nicholas church was a fixture for Greek Orthodox worshippers, people of Greek descent, and countless others working nearby in lower Manhattan. The original church was only 22 feet wide and 56 feet long, with just 35 feet tall.

(4) One Greek Orthodox worker who frequented the small church was the late John Katsimatides, a corporate bonds broker at Cantor Fitzgerald. Katsimatides visited the small chapel whenever he could to light a candle and pray. He worked on the 104th Floor at One World Trade Center (North Tower) and was just 31 when he perished in its collapse. His sister, Anthoula Katsimatides, who is on the parish council of the newly built St. Nicholas Shrine that replaced the destroyed church building, remembered John in a recent Quorum Radio interview to commemorate the 9/11 anniversary:

Well, 20 years is indeed a long time, but for someone who has dealt with a loss of this magnitude, of this type of tragedy, it’s been a very long struggle….every day, I live with John’s face in my head and his memory in my heart. But, unfortunately, the pain doesn’t really go away; you just learn to live with it.

Notwithstanding the pain, Anthoula said that “…. It’s actually never hard to talk about John because he was the love of my life.”

Hear the interview of Anthoula Katsimatides on the Parish Council of the St. Nicholas Shrine and Church near Ground Zero.
https://youtu.be/zRDKTcfldE8

The new facility for St. Nicholas is a shrine to those who died on 9/11 and the rebuilding of the church, which was destroyed on that day. It stands less than 50 yards east of the original church, at 155 Cedar Street, and is over three times the latter’s size. (5) It is adjacent to the 9/11 Memorial Museum and was designed by famed Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, who based his design on two famous churches in Istanbul, Turkey: the Hagia Sophia and the Church of the Holy Savior. (6) The exterior is clad in magnificent Pentelic marble from the same vein from which the stone was mined used in the building of the Parthenon in Athens, Greece, 2500 years ago. The marble was a gift from the government of Greece. (7) so many should generously donate millions of dollars towards constructing this Shrine to St. Nicholas, who was not only the patron saint of mariners and those in need of financial assistance.

The Shrine of St. Nicholas is a cenotaph, or empty tomb, to commemorate those who died but whose remains were never located and identified. Anthoula Katsimatides, on the board of directors of the 9/11 Memorial Museum, observed that the bodies of 41 percent of those killed in the 9-11 attacks were never recovered.

Michael Psaros, vice chairman of the Friends of St. Nicholas, who directed and provided financial oversight for fundraising efforts for the St. Nicholas Shrine, stated: “There is no grave marker for those that were martyred on that day, and this church is the vessel of their remembrance.”

(8) The Shrine will be a welcoming place to all and not just Christians. Michael Psaros added that the Shrine would be a place “where we hope people of all faiths, nationalities, races, and religions from all over the world, by the millions, who go through Ground Zero, will walk into the church — whose doors will be open — light a candle and reflect in their own way on what occurred that day in our national shrine,”

(9) Recently, Turkish President Recep Erdogan formally converted the 1,500-year-old Hagia Sophia (which means “Holy Wisdom” in Greek) back into a mosque. The Hagia Sophia was one of the grandest churches in Christendom when Constantinople fell to a besieging Turkish army in 1453. In an apparent dig at Erdogan, Michael Psaros stated that “our national shrine is the daughter of the Church of Holy Wisdom” and that its construction “sends a statement to the world about who we are versus many other places.” The Turkish government is notorious for its ongoing efforts to suppress or minimize the amply documented historical facts concerning the attempted genocide against the Christian Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian populations in Anatolia during the waning days of the Ottoman Empire. Several million of these ethnicities were murdered or displaced during a 30-year reign of terror perpetrated by the Ottoman government. (10) The Shrine of St. Nicholas was lit up on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. It is hoped that this Shrine, one for all peoples, will by its very example shame those enemies of religious intolerance in the Middle East to cease their depredations against non-Muslims.

This powerful image of light triumphing over darkness is in keeping with the Christian association of the morning dawn of Easter and the Easter Vigil marked by the lighting of candles to mark the Resurrection of Christ and his triumph over death brought on by evil. Concerning the witness of light to triumph against the darkness of death, Fr. Alexander Karloutsos. Vicar general of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America stated that “on September 11, we were immersed in this great darkness and feeling great pain and significant loss, that’s why for me personally, seeing now this church — that will be like a candle lighting up and giving hope to so many. That’s better than just simply cursing the darkness.”

The Near East Center for Strategic Engagement (NEC-SE) was founded on September 11, 2014, in commemoration of the Americans who were murdered in the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and recognized the first responders who continue to die from health effects from the attacks. A few years later, the United Assyrian Appeal 501c3 was founded to support the Assyrian military families as their loved ones fighting against ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

As the NEC-SE commemorates its seventh anniversary on this day, we continue to educate all who are working towards confronting the evil of 9/11 wherever it manifests. We also continue to support the United Assyrian Appeal as it prepares for the subsequent genocide against the Assyrians that may be unleashed if not by the end of the year in both Iraq and Syria by next march. https://givesendgo.com/httpsunitedassyrianappealnet

(1)The Book of Mychal: The Surprising Life and Heroic Death of Father Mychal, pg. 347

(2) Bagli, Charles V. (July 3, 2008). “Church’s Troubles Typify Ground Zero Delays.” The New York Times.

(3) Dunlap, David W. (2004). From Abyssinian to Zion: a guide to Manhattan’s houses of worship. Columbia University Press.

(4) Website Friends of St. Nicholas “Heroes page.” https://stnicholaswtc.org/about/heroes-of-saint-nicholas/

(5) “Greek Orthodox Archdiocese and Saint Nicholas Church Establish National Shrine at Ground Zero.” New York: Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. November 13, 2013. Archived from the original on December 13, 2013. Retrieved November 2, 2016.

(6) Dunlap, David W. (October 30, 2013). “Church Near Trade Center to Echo Landmarks of East.” The New York Times. Retrieved November 2, 2016.

(7) St. Nicholas National Shrine ‘begins to glow’ with Pentelic marble. Greek City Times www.greekcitytimes.com/2021/02/03/st-nicholas-shrine-pentelic-marble/

(8) PBS.ORG/NEWSHOUR This Church Was Destroyed on 9/11. Now it’s reopening as a shrine to victims.https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/this-church-was-destroyed-on-9-11-now-its-reopening-as-a-shrine-to-victims

(9) PBS.ORG/NEWSHOUR This Church Was Destroyed on 9/11. Now it’s reopening as a shrine to victims.https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/this-church-was-destroyed-on-9-11-now-its-reopening-as-a-shrine-to-victims

(10) The thirty-year genocide: Turkey’s destruction of its Christian minorities 1894–1924

 Ze’evi, Dror; Morris, Benny (2020). Cambridge, MA, and London, Harvard University Press, 2019, 672 pp

(11) PBS.ORG/NEWSHOUR This Church Was Destroyed on 9/11. Now it’s reopening as a shrine to victims.https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/this-church-was-destroyed-on-9-11-now-its-reopening-as-a-shrine-to-victims

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