Belgrade, Church of St. Petka

Emergencies, daily needs, especially during the Covid pandemic, must not make us forget the history and beauty of a city. Adjacent to the walls of the Belgrade fortress – Kalemegdan, there is an oldest Belgrade church built in honor of St. Petka, great Balkan Christian-Orthodox ascetic. Constructed on the spot of the miraculous wellspring of St. Petka in 1937, next to previously errected Church Ružica, this chapel, in fact, represents the new version of much older chapel (built around 1400 ) which was later destroyed.

On a petition of Serbian Princess Milica, part of St. Petka’s relics were brought to Serbia and placed in 1417 in the Chapel of St. Petka. Later, after Turkish conquests, the relics were taken to Constantinople and in the end they were redeemed by a Moldavian nobleman and transferred to Romanian city of Iasi. But Church Ružica still keeps one particle of St. Petka’s relics.

The Chapel was officially opened in 1937, on St. Petka’s day, which is October 27th. 

In recent days, a significant number of masks were delivered by the Embassy to the Orthodox Church of Santa Petka for the use of the most needy.