Shna Ndou, Pray for Us: Saint Anthony in Stained Glass in Tuzi

Across one white wall in Tuzi, in red letters, runs a prayer in Albanian: "Shna Ndou, lutu për ne." Saint Anthony, pray for us. Above and below the words, the saint and a group of children look out in stained glass.

Tuzi and its saint

Tuzi lies on the road from Podgorica to the Albanian border, about 15 km from the capital, at the gateway to the mountains of Malësia e Madhe. Its Catholic heart is Saint Anthony: the town's Franciscan Church of Saint Anthony stands in its center. Albanians call him Shna Ndou, and every June thousands of pilgrims come to Kisha e Shna Ndout, his church in Laç, in Albania.

In 2013, for the Catholic Pastoral Centre in Tuzi, Father Pashk Gojçaj and the centre, represented by architect Vlado Caričić, asked us for a stained glass window of Saint Anthony of Padua, about 128 square feet of glass.

Our design

This time the design was ours. We proposed the sketch of Saint Anthony to the client, and it grew into a whole wall of windows.

Anthony was born in Lisbon in 1195, joined the Franciscans, and died in 1231; the Church honors him as a Doctor of the Church. We painted him the way he has been shown for centuries: in the brown habit and rope belt of his order, holding the Christ Child on one arm and a stalk of white lilies in the other hand. The Child leans toward him, and Anthony looks down with the calm of someone listening.

Shna Ndou, lutu për ne Saint Anthony of Padua

The children

Around the saint we placed children. In the arched windows on either side, a boy in a blue shirt and a girl in white kneel in prayer, with a church and the hills behind them. In the windows below, a barefoot boy in a blue apron and a girl in a red skirt reach up with open hands toward the saint above, while red poppies bloom at their feet. Between them, a window of green garden and flowers joins the 2 sides.

Every window is framed by the same bright border of jewels and diamonds in blue, gold, pink and red, so the whole wall reads as one story. In the corner of one border we signed the work: Atelje Stanišić.

Reaching up The girl in red

Painted and fired

The faces, hands, hair and the folds of the habits were painted on the glass and fired in the kiln in our studio in Sombor, Serbia, then every piece was set in lead. Then the windows traveled to Tuzi and were set in place from the scaffold.

See more of our sacred art and stained glass commissions.

Building: Catholic Pastoral Centre, Tuzi, Montenegro
Client: Catholic Pastoral Centre in Tuzi, Father Pashk Gojçaj, represented by architect Vlado Caričić
Design: Stanisic Studio
Work: stained glass windows with Saint Anthony of Padua, about 128 sq ft
Fabrication: Stanisic Studio, Sombor, Republic of Serbia
Year: 2013