New Icons Illuminate Astoria’s St. Catherine-St. George Church

Constantine S. Sirigos

ASTORIA – The new icons in the apse of the Church of St. Catherine-St. George make an immediate impact. They appear to glow with an inner light and seem not to have been made by human hands. But the creator was human, George Giariskanis, an iconographer from Greece whose father was a priest, and George is all too human, to quote a more famous “priest’s kid” by the same name. He also grew up never imagining what his life’s work would be. Giariskanis was raised in the village of Eleftheroupoli, near Kavala, where he attended elementary and middle school. His family roots are in the hinterland of Smyrna. He said that such village children don’t think about careers, and he was not inclined to pursuing a particular way of life in his youth. Music called him before iconography did, however. He told his dear father he wanted to learn to play a musical instrument, but his father could not get past the idea that his son would end up dissipating his life in nightclubs.

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March 29, 2012