John V. Kassimatis was on duty at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan when the first sign of the attack reached him through a phone call.
He was speaking with someone in the Port Authority Law Department when the woman on the other end screamed that the building was swaying. Then the line went dead. Moments later, the radio reported that a plane had struck the World Trade Center.
Kassimatis, then an Executive Lieutenant with the Port Authority Police Department, headed downtown with other officers. Before they reached Lower Manhattan, they saw the second plane hit Tower Two.
John V. Kassimatis, a former Port Authority Police officer and Regional Commander and Archon Inspector of the Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, died on June 15, 2026. Their in memoriam notice said he had contracted a grave illness linked to 9/11, which he endured with dignity and courage.
The Archons extended condolences to his wife, Alexandra, his son, Archon Founder Bill Kassimatis, and the entire Kassimatis family. A viewing is scheduled for Wednesday, June 17, from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. at St. Paul’s Church, 110 Cathedral Ave., Hempstead, New York. The funeral is scheduled for June 18 at 9:30 a.m. at St. Paul’s Church, followed by a procession to Cutchogue Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made toward the building fund at St. Paul’s.
His life is remembered across several communities: among Port Authority police officers, among Greek Americans, among the faithful connected to Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church at Ground Zero, and among the Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
On September 11, 2001, Kassimatis entered the World Trade Center as others were trying to escape. In the report he later submitted to the Port Authority Police Department, which was later shared by Friends of Saint Nicholas, he described arriving at a scene of fire, smoke, falling debris, and bodies. Inside Tower One, he helped supervise the evacuation near the Galleria level, where people coming out of the staircases were stopping in shock when they saw what was happening outside the glass walls.
There was no time to absorb the scale of what they were seeing. Kassimatis and the officers around him kept people moving, opened paths where they could, and tried to prevent fear from turning an escape route into another danger.
While he was still inside Tower One, Kassimatis heard a roar grow louder and louder. The mezzanine went black. Glass shattered. Steel, concrete, and debris rushed through the space. He was lifted and thrown by the force of the impact.
When he came to, he was on the ground. He could not see. He could barely hear. His mouth was filled with dust. His ankle, knee, and shoulder were injured. He called out for other officers, and somewhere in the darkness a flashlight appeared. Kassimatis, other Port Authority officers, and Secret Service agents formed a human chain and moved through the wreckage by voice, touch, and instinct.
As they worked their way down toward the lobby level, they heard cries for help near the revolving doors. Kassimatis and others pulled two NYPD supervisors from the rubble, a captain and a lieutenant, who then joined the group trying to find a way out.
Outside on West Street, the dust was so thick that Kassimatis later compared it to gray snow. There, he found an unconscious woman bleeding on the ground. He could not lift her, so he dragged her north. When another roar came, he helped get her into an NYPD vehicle and took shelter inside as debris covered the area again. Afterward, he helped get her to an ambulance.
Kassimatis had survived the collapse, but he did not leave the work behind. After being hosed down by a firefighter and checked by EMTs, he moved on despite his injuries. He later helped establish a command post and base of operations at Manhattan Community College.
At the end of his report, Kassimatis wrote that he was honored to have worked that day with more than 200 Port Authority Police officers who responded. He also remembered the 37 Port Authority Police officers who never came home.
For Greek Orthodox Christians, his story carries another layer. Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church on Cedar Street was destroyed in the attacks. The small parish church became part of the memory of Ground Zero, not because of its size, but because of what it represented after it disappeared beneath the ruins.
Friends of Saint Nicholas later honored Kassimatis as a Hero of Saint Nicholas. The organization said that in the days, weeks, and months after 9/11, he helped facilitate the presence of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese at Ground Zero and assisted in the recovery of the few sacred objects that remained from the church.
That role had a human and immediate side. Together with Fr. Alex Karloutsos, a Port Authority chaplain, Kassimatis helped facilitate the return of Archbishop Demetrios from Boston to New York on September 11, allowing him to be present at Ground Zero in the first hours and days after the attack.
Kassimatis did not simply survive the destruction of the World Trade Center. He remained connected to the effort to preserve the memory of what was lost there, including the Orthodox Christian presence at the site.
In 2003, less than two years after the attacks, Kassimatis was invested as an Archon Depoutatos of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The Archon title is given to Orthodox Christian lay leaders honored for service to the Church and to the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Kassimatis later served as Regional Commander and Archon Inspector.
His public life after 9/11 carried more than one form of service. There was the service of the police officer who entered the towers and helped people escape. There was also the service of the Greek Orthodox lay leader who helped carry the memory of Saint Nicholas through destruction, recovery, and rebuilding.
He lived long enough to see Saint Nicholas rebuilt at the World Trade Center as the Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine. For many in the Greek Orthodox world, that rebuilding became one of the clearest signs that the community’s presence at Ground Zero had not been erased.
Kassimatis’ death also belongs to the continuing medical history of September 11. The attacks killed thousands in one morning, but many responders and survivors carried the effects in their bodies for years. The World Trade Center Health Program offers care, screening, and support for people whose health conditions are tied to 9/11 exposure, a reminder that dust, smoke, debris, trauma, and time remained part of many lives long after Lower Manhattan reopened.
His illness was linked to 9/11, placing his passing among the quieter losses that followed the attacks, the kind that came through diagnoses, treatments, family care, and the slow cost of having been there.
Kassimatis should be remembered for what he did on September 11 and for the service he continued afterward. He helped people out of the towers, pulled the injured from debris, helped recover what remained of Saint Nicholas, and kept faith with the memory of Ground Zero. Like many who served that day, he carried its cost long after the morning ended.
For the Greek-American community, his life is a reminder that history is not only made in public ceremonies or familiar community traditions. Sometimes it is made in duty, faith, grief, and the quiet decision to keep serving after the world has changed.
May his memory be eternal.