00:00Good afternoon, everyone. It is an immense honor to be together as we mark 25 years
00:07since the horrific terror attacks of September 11th. 25 years since the darkest day that our
00:16city has ever known. 25 years of grief and sacrifice. 25 years also of heroism and of
00:25rebuilding. I want to acknowledge His Eminence, Archbishop El Pidoforos, to acknowledge His
00:32Excellency, Archbishop Ronald Hicks, Father Andreas Svithuklas, Consul Generals of Greece,
00:39Cyprus, and Romania, UN diplomats that are here with us, as well as rabbis, pastors, and imams,
00:47faith leaders from across the five boroughs who have joined us in solemn commemoration with a
00:53commitment to building a future together of peace, of faith, and of hope. I have been asked today,
01:01as you've heard, to reflect on memory and resilience, how New York remembers the enormity
01:08of the loss we endured, and how we found the strength within to continue onwards. I will begin
01:15first with memory. Over these past weeks, as the heaviness of this day has loomed, I, like so many
01:22other New Yorkers, have returned to the scenes of that morning 25 years ago. The towers rising
01:30against a perfect blue sky, boats in the harbor, and then the violence of the attacks, a sight so
01:36jarring, so unnatural, that even 25 years later it still shocks the body. And yet what I have been
01:45struck by most is not the black smoke pouring into the sky, it is how in almost every image that
01:51captured that morning. Wherever you look, there are New Yorkers looking to help New Yorkers. Some of it
01:59is immediately apparent, like the firefighters striding towards the towers carrying hundreds of
02:04pounds of gear without even a moment of hesitation, the heroism of first responders, like the New Yorkers
02:10who are gathered here alongside me, or the paramedics treating wounded New Yorkers, consoling them gently
02:16amidst the chaos. But it can also be seen in moments playing out just on the edge of the frame,
02:24moments that not even the person filming would think to focus on. I think of one moment where an older
02:30man fell, even though a toxic, terrifying dust cloud was hurtling towards them. A group of New Yorkers
02:37stopped running, turned around, placed their arms beneath his, and lifted him up. The dust may have caught
02:44them, but when it did, all of them were on their feet, and none of them were alone. I saw
02:51it too
02:51in the footage of countless boats streaming towards downtown Manhattan after this Coast Guard sounded a
02:56call for all available boats. And so they came in every conceivable size, plunging into the unknown,
03:03because nothing could get between them and hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers that they needed to help.
03:10Businessmen lifted babies on board, stockbrokers carried an elderly woman and her seeing eye dock onto
03:15the deck, strangers adjusted each other's life jackets. Those who attacked our city,
03:23they did so because they thought they could break us at the fractures. They thought they could
03:30frighten us, they could make us feel alone, they could leave us on our knees. How wrong they were,
03:36how quick we were to stand back up. When we remember September 11th today, we remember
03:45the horrific terror attacks, we remember all those killed, we remember the enormous devastation of that
03:51day. But that is not all we remember. We remember the generosity strangers showed to strangers,
03:58those who never made it home so that others could, the kindness so many summoned from deep within.
04:04We remember how many people helped. That memory can feel distant sometimes. But not here. Not at St.
04:14Nicholas. Here, memory is never far away. And here, we feel the resilience that defined our city,
04:21not as an abstract concept, but as something material, as something tangible, as something as
04:28physicals as the walls that rise around us and the pews in which we sit. No other church was destroyed
04:34on September 11th. No other congregation found themselves so deep within a maelstrom and so
04:41deprived of the place of gathering and solace needed to endure it. And yet this community, like this city,
04:49is resilient. When this building was little more than a crater, filled with rubble, you dug deep in
04:57every conceivable way. You found the strength to rebuild, you found the strength to renew, you found
05:02the strength to recover. And you did not do it alone. I am moved by how many first responders treated
05:09this
05:10site with solemn reverence, carefully excavating and returning Bibles and candlesticks and treasured items.
05:17Within that resilience lived a deep desire to honor what we had lost by treating one another with
05:22dignity, with love, by making faith real. I think today of the words of Bishop Demetrius after a
05:31reporter asked him whether his faith was shaken in the face of such enormous tragedy. The bishop responded,
05:38shaken? Don't you see the outpouring of love surrounding us? A tragedy of tragedies,
05:44but don't you notice this unbelievable amount of love? Love, my friends, is but another word for
05:51resilience. And it was love that guided us as we helped one another to our feet, as we rebuilt what
05:57had been destroyed, and as we sought to restore our city in the image of all those that we lost,
06:02and all those who sacrificed so much. What an honor it is to be gathered here today as we remembered
06:10all
06:10those who we will never forget as we stand on hallowed ground, as we recognize the heroism of first
06:17responders, be they Port Authority, FDNY, NYPD, or any other city or state or federal agency that look to
06:27help the other. And as we gather here, bowing our heads together in a place where great solidarity and
06:34great love rose against all odds from the ashes. Thank you.
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