The Small Church of Saint Sava on Vračar

The Small Church of Saint Sava stands beside the majestic Church of Saint Sava and, in essence, for a long time served as a “temporary” church until the completion of the larger project.

The church was designed by the Russian architect Viktor Lukomsky as a triconch. Its appearance reveals the architect’s own interpretation of Serbian-Byzantine motifs: once again, a careful and thoughtful act of rereading the classical tradition through a new lens.

Pay attention to the character of the form: a cubic structure with a polygonal dome. There are few openings, which creates a sense of concentration, even asceticism. The whiteness of the façade orders the space, while the contrasting blind niches add rhythm: the church seems to “breathe” not through windows, but through the plasticity of the wall.

The interior decoration is also connected with the Russian artistic milieu: the icons on the iconostasis are the work of Vladimir Predojević, while the wall paintings were executed by the artists N. Meyendorff, B. Obraskov, and A. Diky.

In the southern choir area are the remains of Patriarch Varnava, chairman of the Committee for the construction of the memorial Church of Saint Sava.

Now we move on to a space where the symbol becomes, quite literally, the restoration of what was lost — to a chapel built as a response to the destruction of a shrine in Moscow.