NYC’s St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church
The church wasn’t just rebuilt, though: it has been transformed from a humble local church. It is now the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church & National Shrine,
a destination for all. It offers a bereavement center that will serve as a place for meditation and prayer for people of any faith. The structure itself cost $85 million and features white marble imported from the same quarry that provided stone for the Parthenon. Its interior is decorated with icons hand-painted by a monk in Greece. The building sits proudly on an elevated plaza called Liberty Park, which overlooks the pools of the 9/11 Memorial. Its translucent dome glows at night.
Rebuilding the church took 21 years. The costs ballooned. At one point, it nearly became an albatross around the neck of the Greek Orthodox Church’s credibility. Finally, after a land swap with the Port Authority, two years of stopped construction, and fundraising by a group of wealthy Greek Americans, the church has opened.
It remains to be seen whether the new church will support a congregation or will, instead, function as a destination for tourists. But it the New York Times‘s description of the evolution of a now-prominent church’s transformation, and what it took to rebuild, is a fascinating look at money and religion in the 21st century.
Samuel D. Brunson
