"Glory be to You who Showed the light ! Fr. Loukas from Xenophontos Monastery in Mt. Athos has completed the monumental Iconography of St. Nicholas with the Pantokrator in the center of the dome and the choir of the Prophets around Him." Photo: Lou Katsos
As previously discussed and on schedule the final iconography including the Pantokrator icon at the Dome’s center and the 20 Prophets at the Dome’s perimeter painted by Mount Athos monks Fr. Lukas and his associate Fr. Pachimos, among the finest iconographers in the world, was completed early this week, the high scaffolds taken down, and final cleaning activities currently taking place.
Exclusive Photos, courtesy of Mr Lou Katsos
The St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church will open for Great Vespers on December 5th, and Orthros and Divine Liturgy on December 6 , St. Nicholas’s Feast Day. Regular Church activities and services will follow after December 6.
Holy Mountain/ Mount Athos monks Fr. Loukas and his assistant Fr. Pachimos, iconography complements the church’s magnificent original design, bringing in elements of Agia Sofia in Constantinople and the Parthenon in Athens, by renowned architect, structural engineer, sculptor and painter Santiago Calatrava. I highly admire his conceptual aesthetic thought process as well as the monk’s unique artistic iconographic integrity and mysticism. A fantastic “genius to genius” combination/collaboration in a structure that will be an instant landmark in New York’s skyline , and one of the most important structures in the Christian and Orthodox world.
I am honored to have been part of the final process, with many others, to have helped complete the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, a sacred monument and outstanding addition to Orthodoxy.
The Church of St. Nicholas, a "spirit of place" is built in the heart of Ground Zero replacing the one destroyed, being completely buried by the collapse of the South Tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11, and the only religious institution destroyed on that day. As such the newly erected St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church is a Greek Orthodox Church of national and international importance as well as a National Shrine acting as a “cenotaph” for the approx. 3,000 people who died, may their memories be eternal, on 9/11 .
The term “cenotaph “ from the Hellenic is an “empty tomb” or a monument erected in honor of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. The word derives from the Greek: κενοτάφιον / kenotaphion (κενός kenos, meaning "empty", and τάφος taphos, "tomb"—from θαπτω /thapto, I bury.
