Church of the Holy Trinity – Russian Church in Tasmajdan

This Russian Orthodox church was designed in 1924 by the famous Russian architect, emigrant Valery Stashevski, with the financial help of the Serbian state and the Karadjordjević family. Stashevski laid a lump of Russian soil in the foundations, as the greatest treasure that the Whites had taken with them from their homeland. The church was consecrated on December 26, 1924, with the commander of the White Guard, General Baron Wrangel, attending the ceremony. Five years later, he would be buried near the church entrance, where his marble tomb still stands today. In 1946, the church received the status of a representative of the Russian Orthodox Church in Belgrade. In 1957, the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Alexy I visited the Church of Saint Trinity and served the Divine Liturgy. Due to its proximity to the building of the Radio Television of Serbia, the church suffered extensive material damage in the 1999 bombing of Belgrade. Restoration started the next year and was finished in 2007, when the Metropolitan of Smolensk and Kaliningrad consecrated the renewed church. In 2013, on the occasion of the celebration of 1700 years of the Edict of Milan, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all Russia visited the church. Here, the scarf of Prince Alexei Romanov is kept, which his sisters knitted for him while he was still inside their mother’s womb. The boy was very attached to the scarf, a symbol of sisterly love, and always had it with him during the 13 years of his life. Unfortunately, the Admiral Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak, loyal to the Tsar, arrived too late to save the Romanov family from their terrible deaths. His men were the ones who found the boy’s scarf and so the Admiral took it to Tsar Nikolai’s sister, Grand Duchess Xenia, who had fled to London. It is unclear how the scarf via the USA got to Australia and into the hands of the Romanov’s lady-in-waiting Tamara Ventura Laduska, who donated it to the Belgrade’s Church of the Holy Trinity. Today, a part of the scarf of the Holy Martyr Prince Alexei is kept under glass inside the church so visitors can pay their respects, and every 17 July a service is held to honor the Romanovs.