The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America accused New York officials on Tuesday of turning their backs on the reconstruction of the only church destroyed in the Sept. 11 attacks, while the controversial mosque near Ground Zero moves forward.

The sidelined project is the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, a tiny, four-story building destroyed in 2001 when one of the World Trade Center towers fell on top of it. Nobody from the church was hurt in the attack, but the congregation has for the past eight years been trying to rebuild its house of worship.

While the mosque project cleared red tape earlier this month, negotiations between the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the church stalled last year -- and will not be revived, according to government officials. Though the particulars of the two projects are completely different and on the surface unrelated, the church and its supporters see a disconnect in the way the proposals have been handled.

An archdiocese official said Tuesday that the situation has created "consternation" for those still struggling to jump-start talks over the church.

"We have people that are saying, why isn't our church being rebuilt and why is there ... such concern for people of the mosque?" Father Alex Karloutsos, assistant to the archbishop, told FoxNews.com. He said "religious freedom" would allow a place of worship for any denomination to be built, but accused officials with the Port Authority of making no effort to help move the congregation's project along.

"Unfortunately, they have just been silent -- dead silent, actually," said Karloutsos, whose father was ordained at St. Nicholas. "They just simply forgot about the church."

The Port Authority and the church announced a deal in July 2008 under which the Port Authority would grant land and up to $20 million to help rebuild it in a new location -- in addition, the authority was willing to pay up to $40 million to construct a bomb-proof platform underneath.

Within a year, the deal fell through and talks ended. Port Authority officials told Fox News that the deal is dead.

The archdiocese and Port Authority offer sharply conflicting accounts of where things went wrong. The Port Authority has previously claimed the church was making additional demands -- like wanting the $20 million up front and wanting to review plans for the surrounding area. They say the church can still proceed on its own if it wishes.

"The church continues to have the right to rebuild at their original site, and we will pay fair market value for the underground space beneath that building," a spokesperson with the Port Authority told Fox News.

But Karloutsos called the Port Authority's claims "propaganda" and said the church has complied with all conditions. He said the government should honor agreements that date back to 2004, under former New York Gov. George Pataki.

Pataki, speaking with Fox News on Tuesday, agreed that the church should be rebuilt.

"I don't understand it," Pataki said. "Why the Port Authority now has so far put roadblocks in the way of its reconstruction is beyond me. It's not the right thing to do."

George Demos, a Republican candidate for New York's 1st Congressional District, has also drawn attention to the church negotiations. He released a written statement last week calling the Port Authority "disingenuous and disrespectful" for claiming the church project could go forward.

"For the last year, the Port Authority has refused to meet with church officials and is now reneging on its commitment to rebuild the church," Demos said.

Demos said the stalled church plans are an "outrage," considering New York City's Landmarks Preservation Committee vote in early August to deny historical status protection to the building where the mosque is set to be built, clearing the way for the project to move forward.

The church project has not attracted the kind of national attention the mosque has. President Obama injected the mosque into the national political conversation when he appeared to endorse the plans at a Ramadan dinner at the White House Friday. The White House later clarified that Obama was supporting the developers' right to build the mosque, not the project itself.

The president's comments set the stage for mounting criticism from Republicans, who widely oppose the project and now want other Democrats to declare where they stand on what for months was a largely local issue.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has supported the church as well as the mosque, defended the mosque proposal Tuesday.

"I think it will add to the diversity of the area," Bloomberg said. As for Obama's comments, he said: "He understands the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as well as anyone."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/17/ground-zero-church-archdiocese-says-officials-forgot/

Wow, if this were for Muslims this would have already been approved.

Yep! Religious tolerance...

















only if you are Islamic!





Obama, YOU SUCK! AND SWALLOW!

What percentage of Americans believe 9/11 was inside job?
I have 3 friends who believe it was inside job. They said they came to this conclusion by googling. In fact google leads you to thousands of websites which try to explain why and how it was inside job.

One of my friend even says Bush administration created 9/11 to get political mileage. He says the WTC collapsed because dynamites exploded in its basement. He then says truth will be found in 30 years that it was indeed an inside job and he explained that US military in the past tried to kill its own civilians and he googled that too by reading about operation mockingbird. He further says no wreckage of pentagon crash was found and that its impossible for the whole plane to evaporate and actually it was a missile that landed in pentagon.

So why do some Americans feel it was inside job, and what is the percentage of such Americans? Oh, and my friends are not muslim or middle eastern. They're white
1 year ago
Additional Details
and those friends who believe that are educated. They have bachelor degree in computer science, math and electrical engineering respectively. Yet despite being well educated they feel it was inside job.
1 year ago

Ofcourse they are all US citizens and so am I. . They just say there are many questions unanswered in the government version of story.
1 year ago

xyz: 2040 is a very long time. most people don't even know if they would be alive. By then it is likely that 9/11 would be long forgotten and things would go back to the way they were before 9/11.
1 year ago

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090825215437AADNtXT

A building blasted from the bottom floor usually falls over sideways. I seen it as it happened, the top stories fell in on the lower floors like a domino effect working down. They both went down like a implosion or professionally dropped with accuracy but the thing is the scope of the fire being hit by TWO planes there was no way the buildings were standing long. The people calling it a American Conspiracy are jackoffs who need a good beating and a lot of reeducation in not being a pack of stupid azzholes trying to explain everything as a conspiracy. If this was it was so over the top lame!

People need to get it in their head America has enemies and Islam is not our friend!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU-nMsyXP0s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eVFDY8IN1s&feature=related

More than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East, according to a new Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll.
http://www.scrippsnews.com/911poll

People need to have another Christian church to create more Christian home grown terrorists.

Polls & ResearchArchive Search


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Americans Question Bush on 9/11 Intelligence
October 14, 2006
- Many adults in the United States believe the current federal government has not been completely forthcoming on the issue of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, according to a poll by the New York Times and CBS News. 53 per cent of respondents think the Bush administration is hiding something, and 28 per cent believe it is lying.

Only 16 per cent of respondents say the government headed by U.S. president George W. Bush is telling the truth on what it knew prior to the terrorist attacks, down five points since May 2002.

Al-Qaeda operatives hijacked and crashed four airplanes in the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, killing nearly 3,000 people. In October, after Afghanistan's Taliban regime refused to hand over al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the U.S. launched the war on terrorism.

On Aug. 6, 2001, a Presidential Daily Briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." mentioned "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York."

On May 17, 2002, Bush discussed the situation, saying, "The American people know this about me, and my national security team, and my administration: Had I known that the enemy was going to use airplanes to kill on that fateful morning, I would have done everything in my power to protect the American people."

On Sept. 11, Bush referred to the attacks, saying, "Five years after 9/11, our enemies have not succeeded in launching another attack on our soil, but they've not been idle. Al-Qaeda and those inspired by its hateful ideology have carried out terrorist attacks in more than two dozen nations. And just last month, they were foiled in a plot to blow up passenger planes headed for the United States. They remain determined to attack America and kill our citizens—and we are determined to stop them."

Polling Data

When it comes to what they knew prior to September 11th, 2001, about possible terrorist attacks against the United States, do you think members of the Bush Administration are telling the truth, are mostly telling the truth but hiding something, or are they mostly lying?

Oct. 2006
May 2002

Telling the truth
16%
21%

Hiding something
53%
65%

Mostly lying
28%
8%

Not sure
3%
6%


Source: The New York Times / CBS News
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 983 American adults, conducted from Oct. 5 to Oct. 8, 2006. Margin of error is 4 per cent.


Complete Poll (PDF)


http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/13469

speaking to a empty room.

They had evidence dating back to the day's of Clinton. Hell in 2000 before he left office the Mossad even alerted us that there was going to be an attack on US soil. Involving approximately 20 militants and wen't as far as giving us the names of four of them including Mohammad Atta(who was just finishing up a flight school at the time of the tip off).

But no, Clinton did nothing, he blew it off. Just like all the chances he had to get Bin Laden that he didn't have the guts to give the ok.

I think anyone should build on private land as they see fit and as the authorities deem is appropriate. Permits are denied, or accepted daily. I havent seen the agreements for either project so my only feeling is that the church and the mosque should abide by whatever the requirements are, after which their projects should be permitted to move forward.

I thought you were all about tolerance for ALL people.