Liturgy and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

On Tuesday morning, we drove with Natasa over to the Theology School for the Divine Liturgy. Afterwards, we met with Bishop Maxim again for about 1.5 hours.

In the afternoon, we caught up on some emails and I did some translation work. In the evening, we all went to Tempo, the Serbian Wal-mart. We stocked up on some things that are outrageously expensive in Greece.

On Wednesday, the day was rainy and overcast, but we had planned on going to see the Monument to the Unknown Hero of WWI on the outskirts of Belgrade, so we went anyway. It was about a half hour drive from the apartment in New Belgrade, but it was worthwhile. Once again, it was a beautifully maintained public park, with the Monument at the center.

The communications tower for public TV and radio is also located here. It was bombed by NATO in 1999, but they are rebuilding it now.

Ironically, in light of that last statement, the Monument to the Unknown Hero commemorates the millions of Serbs who died in WWI, fighting alongside the US and the Western powers. The Serbs lost about 30% of their entire population fighting that war.

The first photo is of the monument from the outside, the second from the inside.

After visiting there, we headed back to Belgrade. I wanted to stop at St Sava’s Cathedral and see the progress on the inside. The traffic in downtown Belgrade was absolutely horrendous!! And I thought Greece was bad! I hate driving in that kind of mayhem, so Pelagia drove and I took a picture from the backseat to commemorate the occasion (see bottom photo).