FAITH Endowment Offers $2.57 Million Grant for St. Nicholas Shrine

FAITH, an Endowment for Orthodoxy and Hellenism, has issued a grant of $2.57 million towards the rebuilding of the Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese.

The grant was in response to a special appeal by Archbishop Elpidophoros and former Archbishop Demetrios.

This is the second grant FAITH offers to the cause. In April 2020 it offered a grant of $14.2 million.

Overall, as the largest benefactor, the FAITH Endowment has given over $18.7 million to support the construction to rebuild Saint Nicholas.

“The grants to Saint Nicholas presented a unique opportunity of tremendous historical significance to showcase the Greek Orthodox faith and the story of Greek immigration to the US while preserving the values of our community for future generations,” The FAITH Endowment Board said in a statement.

“Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine will serve to remind the Greek Orthodox community, New Yorkers and the world that what was lost on 9/11 will always be remembered,” it added.

FAITH: Promoting Orthodoxy and Hellenism

Founded in 2004 by a group of ten visionary Greek American leaders and philanthropists, FAITH: An Endowment for Orthodoxy and Hellenism is an independent organization that supports the development of innovative educational, cultural, and scholarship programs that promote Hellenism, an understanding of the Greek Orthodox faith, and the relationship of the two to America’s history and multicultural landscape for young people.

Since its inception with additional support from its members, FAITH has proudly awarded over 1,650 grants and scholarships to the best and brightest young leaders of the Hellenic-American and Greek Orthodox community through its prestigious FAITH Scholarships for Academic Excellence, FAITH-STEM scholarships, Fulbright-FAITH Scholarship collaboration, and more.

Last year, FAITH launched the Strategic Leadership for Transformative Action (SLTA), an executive education certificate course in non-profit management to cultivate clergy and lay leaders of the community in partnership with The Fletcher School at Tufts University.

Supporting St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church

FAITH, on occasion, has also provided grants for unique projects that showcase historical legacies of Hellenism and the Greek Orthodox faith within the US and around the world.

In response to special appeals from His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Archbishop Elpidophoros and former Archbishop Demetrios, FAITH has generously provided lead donor support to projects of symbolic significance including the rebuilding of Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church at Ground Zero, the reopening of The Imvros School and development of Patriarchal Institute for Patristic Studies.

Saint Nicholas Shrine, the long-awaited church that is being constructed to replace the original St. Nicholas Church at Ground Zero in Manhattan, will soon be clad in the very same Pentelic marble as the Parthenon, atop the Acropolis in Athens.

The radiant, cream-colored light of the marble of the Parthenon, which has shone like a beacon for more than two millennia, will be part of the new Shrine, which has been designed to serve as a lantern, with a transparent dome which will allow the light from within to shine up into the skies above New York City.