Hram Svetog Vasilija Ostroskog in Belgrade

This modern orthodox church is situated in the New Belgrade area, on Bežanijska Kosa neighborhood. It's a work from one of my favorite Serbian modern architects of the older generation: Mihailo Mitrovic.

I wrote already about one of his most brilliant buildings: the Genex Tower Building (West Gate Belgrade) and this church is just another of his ingenious projects!

Besides this was the first church build in the Novi Beograd teritory after WW II. Bezanijska Kosa is one of the newer neighborhoods of Belgrade. Tt formed only in the 18th century, and it grew very fast when New Belgrade was build.

Mihailo Mitrovic followed the old tradition for christian orthodox tradition and the glow of old serbian master builder, and choose the form of the rotunda with low annex buildings, a high clocktower in the west and an apsis with altar in the east.
The composition of the church is traditional but the materials and the building techniques are very modern. The church was built in 1996 and was then consecrated in 2001.



The church patriarch sacred the project, expressing also his advise, that church architecture should go furhter than just copy/paste old church forms. So Mihailo Mitrovic suggested a modern solution but in harmony with the canon of church buildings.
In the end of 1997, the church main building was errected including the high bell tower. The work went on even in the face of 1999 NATO bombing. Some bombs fell down in the vicinity but dind't injured the buidingsite.
The freskoes in the interior are made by Dragomir Marunic, who in 2003 had finished to decorate 1000 m2 in "secco technique". His way of decoarating the iconostasis was in the morava school style used in medieval Serbia.

The windows were decorated with antique glass-works of the famous glass-atelier "Stanisic" from Sombor and the mosaic works were done by Vlado Todorovic.

picture above from http://www.pravoslavlje.org.rs


This picture shows the amazing works from Dragomir Marunic. Picture from Dragomir Marunic's website.