60 Minutes - 4/12/2020: Short Supply, Staying Well, The Resurrection of St. Nicholas

Episode Date: April 13, 2020

On this week's "60 Minutes," health care workers tell Bill Whitaker about the conditions they're seeing and the lack of medical equipment they're trying to overcome. The St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church sat at the foot of the World Trade Center before it was destroyed in the terrorist attacks that brought down the twin towers. Nearly 20 years later, it's rising again. Scott Pelley has the story. And John Dickerson explores how people are coping with anxiety, sadness, and grief -- as the coronavirus continues to spread. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Sir, this is the best you can? You say this is the best you can. It's like, oh, somebody could have done better. Really? I literally feel like I'm about to shatter into a million pieces right now. I feel like one wrong move and I'm going to break and I'm going to fall apart But I know that I can't because I need to take care of my family right now The stress of staying well is affecting American families like never before Profound anxiety and in too many cases, grief

It's a rough time We have a tendency to hear all the negative There's also this reaffirmation of what makes us great, not just as people in a country, as human beings. For Easter, we visit a fortress against time where art is created to help heal one of America's greatest wounds. It is the story of the resurrection of the only house of worship destroyed on 9-11. The good of mankind can conquer evil no matter what. I'm Leslie Stahl.

I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm John Dickerson. I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories tonight on 60 Minutes. The United States has the tragic distinction of having the highest daily death toll from COVID-19 anywhere on earth. Last week saw nearly 2,000 Americans die at home or in hospitals each day.

Thousands of medical workers are falling ill, pulled from the front lines just when we need them most. So far, more than 50 have died nationwide. For doctors and nurses, a steady supply of personal protective equipment, or PPE, can be a lifesaver. But there are massive shortages in those supplies. How did the wealthiest, most medically advanced nation on earth wind up so utterly unprepared to confront this pandemic? We spoke with the combative White House official in charge of procuring PPE and doctors and nurses risking their lives without the same protective gear many of their counterparts around the world have. Every hospital in New York City is teeming with this virus, right?

In my place, there are hundreds and hundreds of patients, many, many dozens of intubated, sick COVID patients in the average place in New York City, whether it's NYU, Cornell, Presbyterian, Northwell, Stony Brook, there are hundreds of intubated COVID patients, and a lot of people are dying. Dr. Sheldon Tepperman is chief trauma surgeon at Jacoby Medical Center in the Bronx. The borough has one of the highest COVID-19 death rates on earth. He runs four intensive care units full of critically ill patients. His days, he told us, seem endless. It's the same in hospitals all over New York City.

Crosstown at Brooklyn Hospital Center, overworked doctors and nurses with limited protective gear, some wearing trash bags bound with tape, race from emergency to emergency. At Wyckoff Hospital in Brooklyn, body bags line the hallway. One doctor called conditions there catastrophic. After another 16-hour day, Jacoby Medical Center's Dr. Tepperman came to us exhausted. We maintained social distance, each in a different New York City location. So COVID comes in waves. It comes in waves. So it could be manageable in the emergency room at a given moment, and then we're hit with a terrible wave. When that wave washes in, what is it like in the ER? So emergency medicine physicians

and nurses, they've got to stare into the faces of these very scared citizens in New York. And at a certain point, when they can no longer breathe for themselves, they have to have a tube put down their throat and they have to be put on the ventilator. You told us it was like hell on earth. Yeah, so I'm, you know, I'm calibrating what I'm saying here, right? We, people need to stay home. New York City is on fire. Our neighbors are dying. Healthcare workers are being affected. Right now, you know, my boss, my second in command, my nephew, senior nurse, second senior nurse. The people you just mentioned have all fallen ill from COVID-19? Yes, yes. And some of them are quite sick. Dr. Tepperman and his colleagues are

repeatedly exposed. He told us he sees the virus in hot zones around the hospital. I'm speaking metaphorically that I see the virus. It's also a protective mechanism. There are moments in the hospital, you know, where the virus conceivably is pluming into the air because a procedure is being done that creates an aerosolizing of the virus. I mean, that's just a fact. Those are the true N95 moments. N95s are the coin of the realm in this crisis. Respirator masks that filter 95 percent of airborne particles. Just as important, though, are the gloves, gowns, goggles, face shields, surgical masks, all PPE designed to be discarded after every encounter with an infected patient.

Do you have enough masks? KELLY CABRERA, Emergency Room Nurse, Jacobi, We want to help you. Do you have enough masks? No. Do you have enough face shields? No. Gowns? No. Kelly Cabs? No.

Kelly Cabrera is an emergency room nurse at Jacobi. We want to help our patients and we want to do it safely. Who led a protest to draw attention to the lack of PPE at hospitals nationwide. The problem has gotten so bad, there's a hashtag, get me PPE on Twitter with posts like, I'm a physician at a New York City hospital, and this is the PPE I was just handed for my shift, a Yankee souvenir rain poncho. Look, my neck is exposed. I'm wearing a reused mask. I have another one covering it. Cabrera has been filming video diaries, but says she's speaking out reluctantly.

We conducted the interview remotely. Every health care worker infection, every health care worker death is preventable. How do you feel about going into work every day? Are you safe? No, absolutely not. If you do a simple Google search, look at what other countries are wearing in comparison to us. I mean, it makes sense that we're getting infected. How could we expect not to? More than 900 doctors and nurses in Boston have tested positive for COVID-19. Yet, as of last week in Hong Kong, where masks

are not reused, there were no reported infections of hospital workers. Prior to this, prior to coronavirus, we would have been reprimanded for doing the things that we're doing now. We're walking around with medical waste from room to room, from patient to patient. Did I hear you say you're walking around from room to room wearing medical waste? That's correct. That's what it is. We're wearing stuff that is, it's dirty. The fact that we're given a mask to wear for five days, it's wrong. One of her fellow nurses, Frida Okron, has died. Another was put on life support, and a young ER doctor was admitted to the ICU.

And yet you go back to that hospital every single day. If we don't go, who's going to take care of these patients? I mean, I think we're getting to a spot where people are really, I mean, it's a very difficult moral question. You know, it's like, do I not show up to work and protect myself, or do I show up and do the best that I can with what I have to help other people? A lot of us are speaking out because we realize that this problem is so much bigger than our individual hospitals. Cabrera says she and her fellow nurses are skeptical about the shifting Centers for Disease

Control guidance on the use of personal protective equipment when treating patients with COVID-19. We're looking to the CDC for answers. And initially, they had certain recommendations for what we should wear. We watched those recommendations be scaled back, not based on science, not because, miraculously, coronavirus wasn't as contagious. They scaled those back because they knew that we didn't have the proper supplies. MILES O' The biggest lesson here is, make this stuff here. Economist Peter Navarro is special assistant to President Trump for trade and manufacturing, tasked with getting PPE to America's medical workers. We wouldn't be having this problem if we had the domestic production of essential medicines,

medical countermeasures, medical supplies like masks, and medical equipment like ventilators. If we made it here, we wouldn't be faced with this. That was the original sin. Navarro spoke to us from Washington, D.C. With the strategic national stockpile now depleted, he was put in charge of the Defense Production Act to mobilize American industry to meet the demand for medical supplies. I'm here in New York, and we hear daily the hospitals are running out of masks, they're running out of gown daily the hospitals are running out of masks, they're running out of gowns, they're running out of gloves.

My question is how did we, the United States, the most powerful, the wealthiest country on earth, get blindsided like this? It's the globalization of production through multinational corporations who salute no flag, who love cheap sweatshop labor, and who love the massive subsidies that the Chinese government throws at production to bring it from here to there. The China thing. Navarro is an architect of the Trump administration's trade war with China and is one of the biggest

proponents of its America First policies. Now, in the wake of the outbreak, more than 70 countries across the world are restricting the export of products U.S. doctors and nurses desperately need to treat COVID-19. We have a nurse that we've been speaking to. The nurse asks, what has taken you so long? What has taken... You're talking about ramping up in the Defense Production Act, and she's on the front lines having to reuse masks and gowns. We're moving in Trump time, which is, say, as swiftly as possible. If you look at the trajectory of events,

we learn about the potential for a pandemic. We're not sure what the scope of it will be. The Trump administration starts rapidly mobilizing, but this is the 500-year flood, and it takes time. I have seen reports that the intelligence community was notifying the administration back in January that this was happening. This is like the fake news stuff. It's like, OK, somebody said... It's not fake news, sir. It's like, show me the money here. What exactly did they say? Did they say there's going to be a global pandemic that's going to shut down the entire global economy?

Well, it turns out Navarro himself said almost exactly that. A few days after our interview, the news site Axios published this memo Navarro wrote in late January, in which he warned the White House National Security Council the China-borne virus could cause a global pandemic, take a half million American souls, and cost the economy $5.7 trillion. He told us he does not contest its authenticity. No apologies here from this administration. We are doing better and more than any other president could have done. Sir, this is the best you can? You say this is the best you can.

It's like, oh, somebody could have done better. Really? Who could have done better on this? I mean, really, think about this. And I know it's a pandemic, and it's just really hard for us to accept the fact that this is the best that we can do. I wouldn't wish this upon anybody.

We're running out of supplies that it's not just the PPE and ventilators. We're running out of IV pumps. We're running out of stuff that we never ran out of before. And it is unacceptable that in the United States of America, the richest country in the world, we are struggling like this. This week was one of the worst in New York's history. COVID-19 patients filled hospitals and morgues in numbers that dwarfed 9-11. The Trump administration says it's moving heaven and earth to get medical supplies here. Heaven can wait. New York can't. The president did say that the problem with some people is just no matter how much you give them, they say it's never enough. Well, I would say come visit.

We're taking care of, just in our system, America's largest public hospital system, thousands and thousands and thousands of COVID-positive patients. So, yeah, there's never going to be enough. Keep it coming. Because you don't want to go into those rooms, do you? We're going to go into those rooms. We just need to be properly protected. Sometimes historic events suck. to be properly protected. Right now, I'm digging into the history of incredible infrastructure projects of the 1930s, including the Hoover Dam, the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, and more.

The promise is in the title, History That Doesn't Suck. Available on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hundreds of millions of Americans are at home. Most of them don't want to be. Simple choices about what to touch, where to walk, and what to wear are fraught. More than 100,000 people have died worldwide. Fears about how much more those numbers could grow have stopped much of daily life. But the bills have not stopped coming, though the paychecks in some cases have.

We don't know when it will end. It's a recipe for anxiety, stress, and grief, which puts more of us than ever before in a struggle to stay well. The regimen of physical hygiene is well established. Wash your hands, stay six feet away, cover your face. But the rules for good mental hygiene are not as clear. Psychologists told us that after Americans get past the worst of it, the worst of it may not be over. There may be mental health aftershocks. It's hard to predict. And living with that unpredictability is part of the challenge.

What does it feel like when that phone rings? We run, we pick it up right away, and we're just, we're waiting. Just, we don't even know what to expect. We don't know if they're going to tell us good news, bad news. We're just really anxious about it. Francesca Santacroce is describing the daily update from the hospital treating her father, Joseph, a COVID-19 patient on a ventilator. Before the coronavirus hit her home in the close residential neighborhood of Staten Island, New York, her father took care of the family while Francesca worked in a doctor's office, saving money for medical school. A 23-year-old biomolecular sciences major, she is the first in her family to graduate college.

But when we first interviewed her, at the approved distance, in her driveway two weeks ago, Francesca was shouldering her father's duties, cooking, cleaning, and caring for her 16-year-old sister and mother, who needs five days a week of home dialysis. This video was shot by Francesca's sister on a cell phone after their mother was also diagnosed with COVID-19. I literally feel like I'm about to shatter into a million pieces right now. I feel like one wrong move and I'm going to break and I'm going to fall apart. But I know that I can't. I can't do that because I need to take care of my family right now. You've been doing this now for a week. Yeah.

How long do you think it's going to last? We don't know. The doctors don't know. We don't know. And I don't care how long it takes as long as he comes home. Uncertainty, anguish and hope. In the age of coronavirus, it's not just Francesca who is straining. The pandemic that has rocked her family has touched nearly every American life. In the last few weeks, I think COVID has dominated all my sessions. Daniel Kaplan is president of the New York State Psychological Association

and Francesca's therapist. He spoke to us with her permission. Everybody's racing to get back to their previous lives. But once that moment comes, what psychological effects of this do you think will linger? I don't think the world's going to be the same. I think the loss of jobs, even after the virus is gone, people are still going to struggle. They're going to struggle with, how am I going to pay my rent, my mortgage? How am I going to feed my family?

So it's going to be an ongoing stressor for many people in this country. And there's also a psychological benefit to doing productive work. Sure, right. What do you do when a person had their identity taken away from them because they no longer can work? Their identity taken away from them, and then they can't move about to replace that identity with any other useful, purposeful activity.

Absolutely. It's a double whammy. Yeah, it is. Days blend together when so much of what used to distinguish them has been paused. Bridge Club is on hold. Graduation ceremonies are canceled. This week's religious services have been virtual. Those who live alone are vulnerable, particularly the elderly. But Kaplan says we

must all fight against the blurring of the days by establishing a routine. What happens if you don't have routine? When you don't have that structure, that routine can, for some people, reduce their motivation to do the activities that they still need to do, but from home. And long term, they can become overwhelmed. Oh, I'm not accomplishing my goals. And then they could spiral into a depression. Many of us look for connection in social media and the news, but too much of that can be harmful. A preliminary study done in China after the outbreak

found that high social media exposure nearly doubled one's chances of depression and anxiety. We know already from previous disasters that ongoing anxiety during trauma is a huge risk factor for PTSD and depression in the long term. Yuval Naria is the director of trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. He's a former Israeli tank commander whose own traumatic experiences in the 1973 Yom Kippur War informed his career studying the brains of veterans with PTSD. The brain is really obsessed about identification of fear, you know, of what is safe and what is dangerous. And what I wonder about, though, there is the part of the brain that is always alive to fear, part of the brain that says, it's okay, don't be fearful, because you've been through this before.

But we've never been through this before. Oh, that's so true, what we just said, because most of us don't have a comparable memory or set of memories that can serve our understanding of what's going on right now. Neria led research and training efforts in New York in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks, which has led him to be particularly concerned about the health care workers on the front lines of this pandemic. I mean, we saw that after 9-11, and we saw how many first responders really left out without sufficient medical care and psychiatric care. In New York City at seven o'clock, people open their windows, they applaud.

But then what happens when the clapping stops? Right. Neria estimates that after 9-11, one to 5 percent of New Yorkers suffered from PTSD four years after the attack. He worries there will not be a plan or enough money this time to treat a similar share of a vastly greater population. There is kind of almost like a honeymoon phase right now. There is consensus, high adrenaline, let's do it together. I think once this is ended and we face the reality of the aftermath, coupled with financial difficulties and shortage of services,

all of those things can rapidly elevate the risk for a second pandemic, which will be a mental health pandemic. The cascading challenges were already falling on Francesca Santacroce, who was managing them through therapy. But the day after we first talked to her, the hospital called. Her father, Joseph Santacroce, passed away. He was 50 years old. Francesca, I'm very, very sorry about your father. Francesca told us she had been unable to see or speak to her father in the hospital, but after he died, she was given permission to enter the intensive care unit. They walked me through the ICU to see him, and just to see all those people on ventilators, it was really sad. As I walked in, the nursing staff, all the physicians,

everyone who was on his case, they were crying too. They were so upset. And he looked like he was sleeping, honestly. And I said to him, I'm here. I'm going to take care of everyone. You know, everyone's in good hands. You know, I got this. And I told him I loved him. And that he can, you know, that he can go to heaven and I'll take care of everyone down here. Francesca's first task was taking care of her father's belongings and his car, which he had driven to the hospital. And what was going through your head, Francesca, as you're driving home? I apologized to him.

Apologize why? I was so sad that he had to, you know, go through that alone, that he had to spend his last week in quarantine. You know, he didn't get to talk to us or see us. I wish that I was able to hug him one last time and tell him I love him one last time and, you know, have him play a joke on me one last time. If I would have known that this was coming, I would have used that time more wisely. One of the areas of guilt and regret is not being able to say goodbye. What do you think are the challenges that Francesca now faces?

She's in her early 20s. She is not financially secure. Mom is medically fragile. Just the anxiety around how do you float the household? And then long term, how does she take care of the family while truly pursuing her dreams? The day Francesca learned of her father's death, jazz great Wynton Marsalis' father checked into a hospital.

He was in New Orleans. And you were in New York? I was in New York, yeah. I was kind of torn between if I go down there, he doesn't have it, and I bring it to him, it's going to be worse. Four days later, Ellis Marsalis, a respected jazz musician and teacher, passed away from complications of COVID-19.

He was 85 years old. He didn't complain. He had a worldview. He said, man, I don't determine my time. He said, the fact that you lose a loved one is no more significant than all the other people who are losing loved ones. And that was always his philosophy. We're all part of the same human family.

He felt that. He believed it. He played it. He taught it. And he accepted death in that way also. While Marcellus grieves, he is also responsible for jazz at Lincoln Center, where he is managing and artistic director. The nonprofit has had to close its performance space and has lost millions of dollars. And Marsalis says things are even harder for freelance musicians. And my father was a freelance musician. If this had happened when we were growing up, we would literally just have to go from house to house on our street and just to eat. So this is

a very serious time for the survival of a lot of our musicians. A man used to juggling projects, he once contributed to this broadcast, Marcellus has been touching base with musicians around the world and trying to raise money for jazz at Lincoln Center and also for struggling artists. All of this returns him to the lessons of his father. So if he taught you about philosophy as much as about music, and also for struggling artists. All of this returns him to the lessons of his father. So if he taught you about philosophy as much as about music,

what would his advice be for this moment we are in, where we're sitting in an empty theater, we don't know when this is going to end, people are suffering? You know, he would say, you know, where you at, man? What are you going to do? He'd say, you know, where you at, man? What are you going to do? He said, you talking about doing? You doing? Do something.

Let's go. So how does that work when you're talking to all the people who are involved at Jazz at Lincoln Center? I see almost the same mantra. You know, we're in a bad position, and we're not going to get out of this overnight. But everybody is in our position. So let's embrace this space. Let's work on the trust that we've built up all of these years. Let's go out and make stuff happen that we want to see happen.

We have to move very fast, but we have to be even more process-oriented and more deliberate. And that's how you master a moment of chaos. And that is also the strength of jazz. I was just going to say, jazz, all of that practice, and then in the moment, you have to be ready to... That's right. You marshal all your forces. And be ready to improvise. And be ready to meet the demands of that moment. Another thing that we say to each other is,

let's see if we are who we said we were before we had to deal with this. And what does that mean? When everything is normal, it's easy for us to be full and full of arrogance and commentary. Now we have to be for real. Our morality, our concept, our integrity, all these things are coming to bear in this moment. Because it's a test. Yeah. Let's see, man. We have a tendency to hear all the negative. Everybody's dying, isn't it? Skull and crossbones. There's also this reaffirmation of what makes us great, not just as people in a country, as human beings. Recognizing the good amidst the sorrow is at the heart of the second-line funeral celebrations of Marsalis' native Louisiana.

When his mother died three years ago, the jazz community took up their instruments. For Ellis Marsalis, that celebration will be delayed. Since we're here in this beautiful space, would you like to play anything for your father? Oh, yeah, definitely. I'll play something for him. I want to lay down my burden.

All right. Talking about a riverside. There are very few things that you can be certain of in life. But you can always be sure the sun will rise each morning. You can bet your bottom dollar that you'll always need air to breathe and water to drink. And, of course, you can rest assured that with Public Mobile's 5G subscription phone plans, you'll pay the same thing every month. With all of the mysteries that life has to offer, a few certainties can really go a long way. Subscribe today for the peace of mind you've been searching for. Public Mobile. Different is calling.

This year, Easter dawned in a dark hour. We cannot see the end of the pandemic, but Easter and spring remind us of victory. Our next story is a tale of triumph over adversity. It begins with America's first crisis of the 21st century. In all that was lost on 9-11, nearly forgotten was the only house of worship destroyed that day. For nearly 20 years now, St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church has struggled to be rebuilt. At times opposed by the powerful, sabotaged by human frailty, the project at Ground Zero is rising at last, thanks to those who never lost faith in the resurrection of St. Nicholas. In 1922, a tavern found religion. During Prohibition,

Greek immigrants consecrated a lower Manhattan bar with a cross. The first time I walked in and I saw the little place in there, beautiful place, I felt something. Bill Terrazonis was the last caretaker of St. Nicholas. It was my pride and joy. You called the place Uncle Nick. That's the first thing when I walked in, says, Hi, Uncle Nick, how are you? That was my thing. Uncle Nick was traditional. The tomb of Jesus was carried through streets on Easter. On the Epiphany, the cross was raised from the river, symbolizing the baptism of Jesus.

His face was humble, but inside there was soul, rich images of Jesus, Mary, and the saints known as iconography. Developers coveted the land, but the lone church stood its ground. They were set that no one was going to take their church. My father spoke for all. There was not to be any compromise. Regina Katapothi's father, Jimmy Magnantes, was president of the church and frustrated developers for 34 years. He said they offered me $15 million, and I said no. There was absolutely no hesitation about it. There was even a time that

the archdiocese itself wanted to sell the church. How could he turn down the archdiocese? My father was a man of principle, and a church is a body of people. All he had to do was say no. For eight decades, St. Nicholas remained defiant at 155 Cedar Street, an address that would mark its place in history. Before we knew it, hell broke loose. Bill Terrazonis was there on 9-11. The building just went like this. I said, what's going on here?

And then I walk outside. That was the worst thing in my life. A landing gear wheel bounded into the parking lot. Terrazonis opened his van to find human remains across his seat. He fled on foot just before Tower 2 collapsed. That's when you knew that St. Nicholas was gone? Yep. I lost gone? Yep. I lost part of me.

I lost part of me. What the hell is going on? The days that followed yielded only fragments. We'll find more, Father. We will. We will. Greek Archbishop Demitrios on the left comforted rescue workers. God bless all his people. A group of workers came and they said,

we would like to ask you to pray for us. I say, why? They said, here as we work, we know that we deal also with remnants of human bodies. Please pray for us. Among the dead was 31-year-old John Katsimatithis, a bondbroker in one of the towers who had discovered St. Nicholas on a lunch hour. His sister, Anthula Katsimatithis, told us his remains were never found. I don't have a gravesite to visit, and it's incredibly difficult because we never buried anything or, you know, said goodbye.

What was it about the church that was so special to your brother? buried anything or, you know, said goodbye. What was it about the church that was so special to your brother? With all these buildings and concrete, I think he felt, I know, that he probably felt at peace lighting a candle and just saying a prayer for whatever was going on. Those buildings and concrete became the 9-11 memorial, and plans were drawn for a small domed church, the St. Nicholas National Shrine. But as the congregation prayed at the site each year,

there were delays and a budget that quadrupled to $85 million. Construction began in 2015. The dome rose a year later, but in 2017, the money from private donations ran out. Construction stopped. Only faith kept St. Nicholas alive, as we discovered 5,000 miles away. On the Greek coast, Mount Athos is a hermit peninsula of 20 ancient Orthodox monasteries. Behind the walls of the Xenophontos Monastery, work on St. Nicholas never wavered. Xenofontos is one of the oldest monasteries on Manathos.

The first historical witness we have is from the year 998. Father Jeremiah hails from a town named for a saint, San Angelo, Texas. This is where God wanted me, and here I am. You've been here how long? 22 years. The Xenophantos Monastery is a fortress against time. About 50 monks live at this monastery. There's traditional tasks, or what we call obediences, in the monastery.

The monks who work in the refectory, the monks who work in the garden, the monks who work among the olive trees, among others. We have, of course, the iconographers who are very, very cultivated and have really mastered their art form. Master iconographer Father Lucas is painting the iconography for the new St. Nicholas in the old craft of egg tempera. God has called me to do this work, to communicate the spirit of Mount Athos to the people.

Father Lucas granted us an early look at 56 icons for the project. He painted St. Nicholas by tradition as the patron of seafarers, lifting a man from a violent sea. But what's troubling these waters is 9-11. I personally want this church, through the iconography, to open up a new horizon for people, that they will come away with hope. If this happens, the icons have fulfilled their purpose.

Near Father Lucas' studio, we met the designer of the church at Ground Zero, Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. He'd been to Mount Athos twice before for inspiration. You know, I wonder, what does an architect see when we walk through this courtyard? I believe, you see, that you do not need to be an architect or know a lot about the history of architecture to feel architecture. It's like music or something like that. You have just to open your heart. For St. Nicholas in Manhattan,

his inspiration came from the Hagia Sophia, the former Orthodox church in Istanbul. Inside, Calatrava sketched an icon of Mary, and he thought, since she carried Christ, her body was a church. So there is herself, became a kind of temple, isn't it? Containing something that, according to the Orthodox faith, you know, is almost uncontainable, you know, which it is

the idea of God. The vestments of the new St. Nicholas will be white marble crowned with a translucent dome. At night, it will be a beacon. Light, very important. Why is the light very important? You know, light in my eyes is to architecture. This what sound is to music. Light, candlelight, illuminated the Easter celebration on our visit to Mount Athos in 2018. Abbot Alexios led the procession and at midnight quoted the angel in the Book of Mark.

He is risen. He is not here. In the sanctuary, chandeliers were propelled into orbits to symbolize the joint celebration on earth and in heaven. Recalling the psalm, praise him sun and moon, praise him all you stars of lights. But in Manhattan, there has been little sound or light since construction stopped in 2017. An investigation into finances revealed that millions meant for St. Nicholas were spent on other expenses of the archdiocese. About three and a half million dollars was used elsewhere by the archdiocese, is that correct? It was a transferring of money from the St. Nicholas to another kind of account.

Afterwards, we heard about that. I asked, why you did that? I said, you should not have touched the St. Nicholas money at all. For no matter what, it was a mistake, has been corrected. The money was returned. Last year, Archbishop Dimitrios resigned. A new archbishop and New York State named an independent board to raise the last $45 million and manage construction. Fresh hope for Anthula Castamatithis, who lost her brother.

I know that once St. Nicholas opens, my mom and I will visit and say a prayer for John there. A place of love and hope for all family members and for all people from around the world who are going to come and visit and pay their respects to everyone that died that day. This past summer, Father Lucas left his refuge on Mount Athos for Manhattan to take the measure of God's empty gallery. He told us the walls anticipating his paintings represent the most important work of his life.

The feeling is familiar to Regina Katapothis, whose father had refused to sell the old church. I'm in it for my dad and for everybody else that has gone and perished and hoping with their last breath that they would be able to see St. Nicholas rebuilt. A hundred years from now, what will that little church on the plaza say to the world? That the good of mankind can conquer evil no matter what. It was the Orthodox Church that made the cross the symbol of Christianity. But during construction, it was discovered the dome of St. Nicholas alone had reached the maximum height allowed by a higher power, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which controls the site. In another act of salvation, officials decided a few more feet of heaven could

be spared. If all goes well, and it rarely has, St. Nicholas will be born again next year on the 20th anniversary of 9-11, a monument to death and life and unremitting faith. Passover, Easter, and Orthodox Christians' Holy Week coincide tonight. In this dark season of pandemic, they couldn't have come at a better time, these observances of liberation and renewal, of resurrection and deliverance. As we saw tonight in our stories of the rocky path to resurrect St. Nicholas Church, the psychological shadow cast by this pandemic, and the perils faced by medical professionals, we are in need of this season when light overcomes the darkness of the spirit. These sacred holidays serve as a promise of better days ahead and the eventual end of even the darkest times.

Happy Passover and Happy Easter. I'm Scott Pelley. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.