Rebuilding has been blocked for nearly nine years. Where’s the outrage?

Amid all the brouhaha about the intentions of our Muslim enemies to build a monument to terrorism at Ground Zero in New York City, we seem to have forgotten about rebuilding the little Orthodox Christian church that was destroyed in the same attack.

George Demos: REBUILD THE CHURCH AT GROUND ZERO, NOT A MOSQUE

H/T: Sparta

Brookhaven, NY- George Demos, the Conservative Republican Candidate for Congress in New York’s First Congressional District issued the following statement on the proposed mosque amid the sacred ruins of Ground Zero and expressed outrage at our own government’s refusal to rebuild the only house of worship that was actually destroyed on September 11th- the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church.

George Demos said:

“On September 11, 2001, over 3,000 Americans, including 168 residents of our community in Suffolk County, were taken from us by the evil acts of Islamic extremists bent on destroying our freedoms. Amid the thick smoke and choking ashes of that fateful day, the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church was reduced to dust.

Since 1922, St. Nicholas Church had stood as a quiet sanctuary of prayer and reflection amidst the tumultuous and bustling crossroads of commerce. For nine years the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey has used bureaucratic obstacles and false promises to hinder the rebuilding of the St. Nicholas Church. This must end and it must end now.

What an outrage that our government has put roadblocks in the path of its own citizens trying rebuild their beloved Church destroyed by Islamic extremists, while Saudi Arabia, a nation that prohibits people from even wearing a Cross or the Star of David, now provokes the families of those who lost loved ones by apparently funneling money to build a mosque at the same location.

As our Congressman, I will always remember that our Constitutional freedom of religion starts with respecting our own sacred Judeo-Christian heritage. Now is the time for the Port Authority to stop hiding behind its bureaucracy and to facilitate the rebuilding of the St. Nicholas Church that was taken from us on that quiet September morning nearly a decade ago.”

Local bureaucrats block rebuilding the church, but smooth the way for a mosque

I suppose that’s what passes for “freedom of religion” these days! How sadly ironic, considering that there is no greater enemy of freedom of religion than Islam. Islam unjustly avails itself of Constitutional protections by calling itself a religion, but it is not a religion in any recognizable sense of the word. Islam is instead an expansionist, totalitarian political ideology that, much like Nazism and Communism, seeks to rid the world of everything but itself.

Evidently, that’s just fine with the tranzi-progressive/jihadist alliance that is currently running the show in New York City. The New York/New Jersey Port Authority bureaucrats are refusing to budge, and, with few exceptions, the local politicians are doing nothing to get justice for the St. Nicholas congregation and other Orthodox Christians who have the right to worship and to commemmorate the dead in a church on this site.

This story ran in the New York Times over a year ago, and still nothing has been done.

NYT: Church’s Troubles Typify Ground Zero Delays

Photo by Eric O’Connell
St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church on Sept. 11, 2001, minutes before it was crushed by the falling south tower. Seven years later, the Port Authority and the church have failed to agree on a land swap needed for rebuilding.

By CHARLES V. BAGLI
Published: July 3, 2008

The story of the tiny St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and its efforts to rebuild after the collapse of the World Trade Center is one of well-intentioned promises that led to endless negotiations, design disputes, delays and mounting costs.

It is, in other words, a microcosm of the seven-year, $16 billion, problem-plagued effort to reconstruct the entire trade center site.

Within a month of the attack on the trade center, Archbishop Demetrios, primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America, pledged that the four-story church would rise “on the same sacred spot as a symbol of determined faith.” Gov. George E. Pataki agreed.

But today, the church exists only on blueprints. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the agency overseeing reconstruction, has not finalized the exchange of land needed to provide the congregation with a new home near ground zero. Until that deal is completed, the authority cannot proceed with building the southern foundation wall for the entire site, and cannot draw up designs for a bomb screening center for buses and trucks that would go under the new church.

Read the rest.

More information here:

Church Website: St. Nicholas Church in New York City

Also see:

Article on New York Daily News blog:
GOP Hopeful George Demos: Rebuild Church At Ground Zero, Not Mosque

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