On September 11, 2001, over 3,000 Americans 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 [the past] 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 to 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 your 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. The former St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church was destroyed when the World Trade Center fell on it.

George Demos is a Republican candidate for New York's First Congressional District.

On a side note, people have been calling for prominent Greeks like George Stephanopoulos to put in their opinion on the subject. He actually is for the mosque and his reasons are in the video below:


Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos on Wednesday defended the building of a mosque near Ground Zero as a monument to tolerance. Talking to conservative radio host Laura Ingraham, he proclaimed, "This is a country founded on the notion of religious freedom. What better way to say they [the terrorists] haven't won?"

Ingraham decried the plan for being so close to the site of 9/11 terrorist attack: "And I say the terrorists have won with the way this has gone down. 600 feet from where thousands of our fellow Americans were incinerated in the name of political Islam?"

This prompted the ABC co-host to chide, "In the name of militant, radical Islam, not in the name of Islam."