The Serbians are building the biggest Orthodox church in the world.
St Sava in Belgrade is a huge space made of concrete. It lacks the peaceful feeling of other holy places I’ve visited, but that could be down to the ongoing building works.
A mason is electrically chiselling a white marble capital for one of the columns, creating an arabesque pattern of foliage and the face of a low-ranking angel. Lions, elephants and eagles are carved along the arches.
It seems like an amazing thing to do to carve out a place of worship like this – or to carve out a country, which has happened here repeatedly.
Just caught up with your blogs again, love it! What is a low ranking angel?
Cherubim are pretty low-ranking. Archangels on the other hand, like Gabriel, are very senior. You couldn’t have a low-ranking angel handling the annunciation for example.
It’s like that well known phrase, ‘don’t send a cherub to do archangel’s work.’
Hello, Sarah,
I’m back to London. Finally, finally
My shoes are still fine. I can have spare shoes now. But socks…I have to wash again. ha ha
It was really nice to meet you in Belgrade, by the way. I’ll give you a ring later.
See you soon hopefully,
K