Ružica church in Belgrade fortress

The church popularly known as Ružica (Rose) is situated in the southeast of the eastern sector of the Fortress of Belgrade, close to the Arched Wall of the Zindan Gate complex, and forms a sacred space together with the chapel of St Petka and an ancillary building. The origin of the present-day church building can be traced back to the gunpowder magazine built during the Baroque-style reconstruction of the Fortress carried out according to the design of Nicolas Doxat de Morez (Demoret) in 1723-39. It served the same purpose until 1867, when the last Ottoman garrisons were withdrawn from Serbia, and in 1867-70 was converted to serve religious purposes. Having sustained heavy damage in the 1915 artillery battering of Belgrade, it was rebuilt in 1921-25 after a design by the Russian-born architect Nikola Krasnov. The icons for the iconostasis were painted by hieromonk Rafailo (Raphael) Momcilovic and the wall paintings by another Russian immigrant Andrey Bitsenko in 1938. From its consecration in 1867 until the end of the Second World War, Ružica was a military and a garrison church. It was only after the war that worship services began to be conducted by the monastics and priests of the Patriarchate and the Eparchy of Belgrade-Karlovci.