with ivy, it turns green during the spring and takes on a reddish hue in the autumn, when it really re- sembles a rose flower. It is multi- coloured during winter and summer, depending on the number of sunny days. There’s no ivy on the church at present due to the restoration work to clear damp, so everyone eagerly awaits the return of the old image,” says father Sava. This romantic exterior is given a special touch by two sculptures that were cast from cannon balls and placed at the entrance during the church’s renovation. Although they represent a medieval spearman from the time of Emperor Dušan and an infantryman from the period of the Balkan Wars, the statues today appear as guardians of the church and bearers of the best intentions. Having shared the fate of the Bel- grade Fortress and Belgrade, Ružica Church has found itself in the pos- session of various conquerors, and has accordingly had different roles. “During the time of Austrian rule, all the way until 1739, it was a gun- powder magazine, serving military purposes. The city was then retaken by the Ottoman Turks, then fell back into the hands of the Austrians, be- fore the Turks retook it for a short
time, only for the church to return to Serbia’s possession in 1867 and continue its Orthodox spiritual life, though now as a military shrine,” ex- plains Nikolić. It was from here that soldiers set out to battle to liberate Belgrade from the Austro-Hungarians in 1915, with some of them having first taken com- munion for the last time, as the city fell and the army sustained huge loss- es. That defeat turned into a moral victory when the city received the Na- tional Order of the Legion of Hon- our, a decoration bestowed on only two other cities outside France. The soldiers who gave their lives for free- dom were laid to rest nearby and to- day reside in the memorial ossuary of Jakšić Tower. It was during this war that the church was fatally damaged, only to be completely reconstructed accord- ing to the design of famous architect Nikolay Krasnov. The frescos of its walls were painted in 1938 by anoth- er Russian, Andrei Vasilyevich Bit- senko. Alongside the usual religious motifs, the vaulted ceiling shows a procession of Serbian rulers, while watching from the walls are Rus- sian Tsar Nicholas II, Serbian kings Peter and Alexander Karađorđević and others.
There can never be enough curi- osities when it comes to this church, which is why a miraculous spring of healing water can be found under the church. “The stream would some- times flow very strongly and some- times weakly, while it would even dry up entirely. That’s why a chapel ded- icated to Saint Petka was built above the spring. Here a kind of paradox emerges: regardless of the historical importance of Ružica Church, the people tend to flock much more to the chapel of this saint, whose cult is very widespread,” says Father Sa- va, comparing its significance to that of the greatest shrine of the Serbian Orthodox Church: Ostrog Monas- tery. Proof of this is provided by the kilometre-long queues of believers wanting to collect water from this healing spring on the day Saint Pet- ka is celebrated. And if you weren’t in Belgrade on 27 th October, or you were prevented from visiting the spring and the chap- el on that day for some other reason, or from going to Ružica Church on the holiday of the Birth of the Vir- gin Mary, on 21 st September, don’t miss out on a visit to this holy site at Christmas, one of the two greatest Christian holidays, when everything that’s said is turned into pure joy.
Ne propustite da posetite Ružicu za Božić, kada se sve pretače u čistu radost Don’t miss out on a visit to Ružica at Christmas, when everything turns into pure joy
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