Ružica Church: The Church Lit by Bullets

Ružica is usually translated as “little rose”, a gentle name for a church with armed figures at the door. It is dedicated to the Nativity of the Mother of God. Flowers grow outside, and the long stone building fits closely against the fortress walls.

Among saints and sabres

Inside, a gilded icon screen stretches across the church beneath a painted vault. The chandeliers hang among saints and gold, quite at home in the room. There is enough ornament overhead to make a sword handle surprisingly easy to overlook.

In the smaller chandelier, sabres help form an open metal basket. Their grips and guards remain recognisable, while ammunition hangs in rows around the lights.

From powder magazine to church

The lighting and other furnishings were made by the Military Technical Institute in Kragujevac during reconstruction after the First World War. An unusual supplier for church lighting, though an appropriate one for this particular building. The chandeliers were made with pistol and rifle bullets from that war, along with Serbian officers’ sabres.

The building was an eighteenth-century Austrian powder magazine, converted into a military church in 1867. It was badly damaged in 1915 and restored in 1925.

Ammunition was therefore no stranger to the premises, although hanging it from the ceiling was a change in storage arrangements.

That history also explains the company at the entrance. One figure represents a medieval Serbian warrior; the other, a Serbian soldier from the early twentieth century. Both were cast from artillery shell cases.

The defenders of Belgrade

In the First World War, many of Belgrade’s defenders took communion here for the last time before going into battle.

Nearby, close to Jakšić Tower, a small ossuary holds the remains of soldiers who died defending Belgrade in 1914 and 1915. When the foundations were dug for the nearby St. Petka Chapel, soldiers’ bones were found and moved here. The ossuary’s barred gate sits in the shade of the stone walls, with a wreath hanging on it.