George C. Michalopulos<\/p><\/div>On September 11th, 2001, four American passenger airplanes were hijacked by nineteen Islamic terrorists bent on a executing a spectacular suicide attack. Two crashed into the Twin Towers, one into the Pentagon, while a fourth was commandeered by the passengers and crashed into a Pennsylvania field killing all aboard. On that traumatic day 3,000 Americans were killed, the single worst enemy attack sustained on American soil in history. The entire world was stunned by this atrocity. The old order was overturned: one million Iranians gathered in Tehran and staged a spontaneous candlelight vigil mourning the victims; Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian armed forces to stand down. The world said with one voice “we are all Americans today.” We still haven’t come to grips with what happened that dreadful day. This attack exacerbated divisions in America in ways that haven’t been seen since the Vietnam War. <\/p>\n

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On that day as well, more than financial and governmental institutions were destroyed. The collapse of the South Tower of the World Trade Center destroyed St Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, a church that was built in 1916 and had been partially endowed by Czar Nicholas II. This entire area has come to be known as Ground Zero. Unfortunately, neither the WTC nor St Nicholas has been rebuilt. Muslims activists however have agitated to build an Islamic cultural center, titled The Cordoba Initiative, just two blocks away from this site. This complex, which is to house a mosque as well as an “interfaith” conference hall and swimming pool, has aroused the ire of millions of Americans who view Ground Zero as hallowed ground. In a very real sense, the political debate has become a flashpoint between secular elites who want this Islamic center built and ordinary Americans who are revolted by the very prospect. Both instances result from a lack of nerve: the political class has for the most part abandoned traditional Americanism, while the hierarchy the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese and the upper echelons of its lay leadership are more concerned foreign affairs involving Greece and Istanbul.<\/p>\n

The silence of the GOA is baffling to those outside the orbit of American Orthodoxy. After all, St Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church was the only religious institution that was affected by this disaster. So silent has the GOA been that until recently, most Americans were unaware that an Orthodox place of worship had been destroyed on that horrible day. It was only because of the efforts of certain conservative politicians and commentators who have led the charge against the Ground Zero Mosque that it was even brought to public’s attention. The few statements made by archdiocesan functionaries in response to this controversy have been tepid at best, and then only elicited due to the prodding of insistent reporters from national news organizations such as FOX News.<\/p>\n

Read the entire article on the OrthodoxyToday.org website.