All news

Orthodox Church dedicated to Romanov dynasty to be built in Republika Srpska, Bosnia

The five-dome church with a polygonal bell-tower meets all the requirements of Russian church architectural design

SOCHI, October 17. /TASS/. An Orthodox church dedicated to the Romanov dynasty will be built in Banja Luka, the Serb Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, upon the design by students of Moscow Institute of Architecture (MArchI), Dr. Dmitry Shvidkovsky, the rector of the Institute told TASS on Monday on the sidelines of the World Festival of Youth and Students underway in Sochi.

"We’ve set up a new department - for church architecture and design," Dr. Shvidkovsky said. "Since the Soviet era, there has been a shortage of architects who could restore churches and that’s why we began to train them."

"Now we’re getting requests from all parts of Russia and even from other countries," he pointed out. "We’ve just learned from Serb newspapers that the authorities in Bosnia endorsed one of our designs. It was authored by two very talented students of our institute, Alexey Kapustin and Zhanna Skobichevskaya, who designed a very nice church."

Alexey Kapustin was among the participants of the festival in Sochi. He told TASS that a delegation from Bosnia had come to Russia in a search of a church building that could be replicated in their country in honor of the Romanovs. They chose his design when they saw a model of the cathedral during a presentation at MArchI.

"The Russian Orthodox Church canonized Czar Nicholas II and his family in 2000 and that’s why this Church is actually devoted to saints, not merely to members of the royal dynasty," Kapustin said.

The five-dome church with a polygonal bell-tower meets all the requirements of Russian church architectural design. Its foundation will be consecrated in the days when the world marks the centennial anniversary since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.

The 19th World Festival of Youth and Students started off in Moscow on October 14 but its main events take place in Sochi from October 15 through October 22. It has brought together young professionals in various spheres ranging in age from 18 to 35 years old from more than 180 countries.

Over the days of the festival, as many as 2,000 foreign participants are expected to visit 15 Russian regions.