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The National Herald - October 27-November 2, 2018

Intentions and Results

By Antonis H. Diamataris

The conclusion of the report issued by the company commissioned to examine the construction of the St. Nicholas National Shrine – separate from the issue of the Archdiocese’s finances – is clear: the work was halted due to lack of funds, caused by significant changes in plans.

The Shrine’s cost overruns “appear to have been the result of change orders agreed by GOA (Archdiocese) decision makers to address architectural concerns or enhance the design… Although these modifications to the original design may have been made with the best of intentions, and may result in a structure being a church and national shrine, the project will have a final cost that is significantly greater than that originally contemplated and publicized.”

How “significantly greater” the increase is in costs is not specified in the report. But we know it amounts to tens of millions of dollars. The expected cost of completion now stands at $80 million.

So the intentions may have been the best –and we have no reason, at this point, to question that– but the result is what it is: an incomplete, locked place of worship, and conspicuously, the only unfinished building at the World Trade Center area destroyed on 9/11. This is an unacceptable situation that affects the Church and Hellenism, and at one of the most prominent locations in the world.

So, who was responsible for the changes in the plans? The report does not mention a specific name, but refers generally to “GOA decision makers.” Those who decide on the Archdiocese’s behalf. In other words, the archbishop.

The archbishop did not act with guile. He wanted to build the best possible shrine, a pride of Orthodoxy, proof of the faith and the Greek-American community’s economic potential; a beacon for all generations to come. Only things did not go as expected.

The question is, why did no one advise him that what he sought was not possible? It is said that he suggested the changes without knowing the real state of the Archdiocese’s finances at the time, as he insists was the case. And his opinion, as archbishop, prevailed. Accordingly, he bears the entire responsibility.

The report also makes a proposal that is almost offensive to both the Archdiocese and the archbishop: remove control of the Shrine’s completion from the Archdiocese and have it be “spearheaded by a new legal entity that may be affiliated with, but is independent from, the GOA.”
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That suggestion reminds of the time of Archbishop Spyridon’s reign, when in order to protect tens of millions of its worth from him, Leadership 100 changed its legal status and moved its offices from the Archdiocese to the Olympic Tower, a magnificent Midtown Manhattan building built by Aristotle Onassis, later passed to the Onassis Foundation, and subsequently sold by its president, Antonis Papadimitriou.

This report is bound to be discussed for a long time, not least of which because it leaves many questions unanswered. At best, it reveals an Archdiocese with amateur infrastructure and a method of decision-making that leaves it vulnerable.

And that must stop.

[ The National Herald - October 27-November 2, 2018 - p. 12 ]
[ The National Herald
  www.thenationalherald.com/217285/intentions-and-results/
  October 21, 2018 ]