Christos Tsiatis
Little Neck
Past President of Parish Council at
St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT: Christos Tsiatis is an active member of the Greek Orthodox Shrine Church of St. Nicholas - a parish of the Eastern Orthodox Christian faith located in Flushing. St. Nicholas has the largest Greek Orthodox congregation in the United States with more than 1,800 families and close to 30,000 devotees who refer to St. Nicholas as their parish. Tsiatis started as a parishioner there and then became involved in the parish council where he served as treasurer and then president - both volunteer positions - for two years in 1998 and 1999. He is still active in the parish as a member of its men’s club, and he volunteers helping to cook charity breakfasts at the parish.
PERSONAL: Tsiatis and his wife Alexandra will celebrate their 35th wedding anniversary this year, and they have two grown sons, Athanasios and George. They have lived in Little Neck for more than 20 years.
JOB: Tsiatis is a dentist, who had an office in East Elmhurst for 27 years, and he will now be opening an office in Bayside on March 2. The new dental office, which will be called Clearview Dental, will be located at 207-12 Northern Boulevard. “I’m more comfortable here, many of my patients live here,” Tsiatis said. “With my involvement in St. Nick’s, I was always in this area.”
PROUDEST MOMENT: During his involvement with St. Nicholas Church, Tsiatis said that his proudest moment was seeing 10,000 parishioners attend an Easter service and realizing that he had played a role in something that so many people could enjoy. While serving as president of the parish council, Tsiatis said he used to spend many hours on the nights and weekends at the church working with other members on many church matters.
BIGGEST CHALLENGE: Because St. Nicholas is such a large church with so many parishioners, Tsiatis said there were always so many challenges that the church faced that it was tough to pin down one. He said that budget and infrastructure issues were always two of the biggest challenges.
FAVORITE MEMORY: Tsiatis described his favorite memories as the nice, calm vacations that he and his entire family took to the beautiful Greek Islands. He said that it was nice break from the busy-ness of life, and he cherished the time with his family.
INSPIRATION: “I think the underlying inspiration for me to get going there was probably the increasing faith in God,” Tsiatis said. However, he also said that becoming so involved in the church was definitely a process for him. “It started out slowly by helping a little bit, and then you see how much difference a little bit of help can make, and you get more and more involved.”
