Calatrava felt the church had to be a place for believers and nonbelievers. Inside the entrance, in the exonarthex, visitors can light candles, a practice that is shared by many cultures and faiths. The ceiling here is low, creating a compressed threshold that opens to the narthex and then the central nave, which soars to a height of fifty-two feet (15.8 m). With room for about 200 people, the circular nave is an intimate space, with contemporary seating and furnishings. The layout, however, follows a traditional Orthodox sequence, proceeding from the narthex into the nave and culminating at the iconostasis, an altar screen covered with icons, at the eastern end. The entire church is open to the public, with the exception of the sanctuary, which is reserved for clergy, and private offices.

The church fulfills two roles. It operates as a regular parish, conducting weekly services that follow the canonical liturgical order of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, as well as baptisms, weddings, and ordinations. Secondly, the Greek Orthodox Church of America has designated it a National Shrine, signaling its larger significance. When I discussed the church with Father Alexander Karloutsos, Protopresbyter of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and a Port Authority chaplain, he said, “Everybody knows the word xenophobia, a Greek word, which is fear of a stranger. Well, there’s another Greek word, philoxenia, which is the love of the stranger. This church will be one of philoxenia, and people will always be able to come and be embraced, affirmed, and supported.” The parish’s interfaith, educational, and cultural programs will be open to all.

Those who brought the new church into being describe it as a “city set on a hill,” or as an American Parthenon. The discrepancies of scale between the Parthenon and tiny St. Nicholas are not lost on the archdiocese, but it takes singular pride in the reality that Greek Orthodoxy, a religious super-minority in the United States, has been called to be the sole religious presence at the World Trade Center. Mark Arey, who helped coordinate the design competition, said, “It somehow seems appropriate to me that the path forward should go to a real minority in the culture. Let the minority build it, let the minority share with the majority, and show that there is a place for everybody in our culture.”

While St. Nicholas owns the church structure, everything just outside that structure is a public park, which anyone, including the parish, can use. This is noteworthy because of the importance of processionals in Orthodox rites. On Good Friday, the Friday before Easter Sunday, for instance, church members mourn the crucified Christ by carrying a flower-covered coffin through the streets while praying for health and healing. On other occasions, including anniversaries of September 11, church members will process through Liberty Park, icons aloft. The public is welcome to participate. “Freedom of conscience and the fundamental human right of free religious expression,” Archbishop Demetrios said, “will always shine forth in the resurrected St. Nicholas Church.”

St. Nicholas’s dome and interior half-domes were inspired by the Hagia Sophia (532–537), a religious and engineering landmark built in Constantinople, now Istanbul. When that city fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the church was reconsecrated as a mosque and four minarets were added. In 1935, it was decommissioned and made into a museum. Along with Brunelleschi’s Duomo in Florence and the Pantheon in Rome, the Hagia Sophia is one of the most influential domed structures of the past two millennia. Its ingenious builders determined that they could put a circular dome atop a square base by using a massive supporting tower at each corner, creating the first true domed basilica.

The church’s privileged location relative to the overall site was decided after years of litigious conflict. The original St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church was founded in 1916 at 155 Cedar Street in a row house that was once a tavern. Greek immigrants had gathered there since 1892; for many Greeks who disembarked at Ellis Island, it was their first stop in America. The church, one of four Christian houses of worship near the World Trade Center, was the only one destroyed on September 11, crushed when the South Tower fell. No one was in the building at the time. A handful of items were salvaged from the ruins. The rest was rubble. The parish lost its most precious possessions—holy relics consisting of bone fragments of Saint Katherine the Great, Saint Sava, and Saint Nicholas—which are now commingled with the ashes of the dead.

Archbishop Demetrios, who leads the Greek Orthodox Church of America, sought to rebuild soon after September 11. Because the Port Authority needed the church’s Cedar Street parcel and its air rights for the Vehicle Security Center, the parish agreed to move to a new location. Church representatives sparred with the Port Authority over exactly where the church should be located and how much the authority would contribute to rebuilding. Efforts to proceed were mired for years. Then, in July 2010, excavators unearthed a wooden sailing ship built during the late eighteenth century at the very location of the original church, which was named in honor of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker, the patron saint of travelers, sailors, and wayfarers. Although many of the faithful took the discovery as a sign that the situation would change, negotiations broke down again. To protect its interests, the church sued the Port Authority. Both parties then agreed to an independent engineering study to determine the feasibility of various locations. Finally, a deal was struck in October 2011. The archdiocese swapped its Cedar Street site for the Liberty Street parcel and agreed to a smaller church. The Port Authority bore the expense of constructing the platform and below-ground supports; the church paid for costs from the platform up. From that point, rebuilding moved apace. The archdiocese invited a select group of international firms to compete for the commission, the names of which are protected by a nondisclosure agreement. After months of deliberation, the unanimous choice was Santiago Calatrava.

The floor plan is composed of a profusion of circular forms braced by four corner towers.

A section drawing shows the rising, circular volumes of the interior, which are modeled after those of the Hagia Sophia. The western façade is a curved, three-story structure that houses a nondenominational bereavement center on the second floor, which is open to all, and a community room on the third floor for parish members.