Light After the Siege: Restoring the Stained Glass of Holy Trinity in Sarajevo

Some windows you make twice. The first time with your father, as a young man on a ladder. The second time after a war, with your own team, for a city that had lost almost everything.

A church on the main street

The Church of the Holy Trinity stands on Zmaja od Bosne, the long main street of Novo Sarajevo. It was designed by the architect Josip Vancaš, its foundation stone was laid on 14 May 1905, and on 18 November 1906 Archbishop Josef Stadler consecrated the church and its main altar. It is a single nave basilica in a mix of Romanesque and Gothic forms, with a bell tower about 151 feet high and a round rose window on the facade.

Father and son

In the late 1980s, around 1987, the parish turned to Atelje Stanišić (Stanisic Studio) in Sombor for new stained glass. The studio was then led by Milan Stanisic Senior, and the pastor was don Ivan Ravlić. The windows had the Evangelists and the saints in round medallions on light, clear glass, framed by colored borders.

It was one of the first projects on which the young Stevan Stanisic worked beside his father. Here he is, climbing the stone tracery in front of the rose window.

The war

After the breakup of Yugoslavia came the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the siege of Sarajevo, the longest siege of a capital city in modern history. The Holy Trinity church stood close to the front line. Shelling hit the roof, the facade and the stained glass, and about 90% of the windows our studio had made were destroyed. What survived hung in the frames in pieces: a face here, a scroll with a name there, holes of open sky everywhere else.

Saint Teresa after the war A medallion window, broken Torn by shrapnel

Coming back

After the war the parish called the studio again. By then Stevan was running Atelje Stanišić. His father had retired, but he stayed at Stevan's side as an advisor, and he was there for this one.

Our offer is dated 22 December 2003. It covered 10 windows: 8 in the nave, each about 5 ft 1 in x 13 ft, and 2 in the sanctuary, each about 3 ft 3 in x 8 ft 8 in, about 581 square feet of glass in all. Because the studio had made and installed these windows at the end of the 1980s, we still had the documentation to make them again in the same technique and materials.

Each window was taken out of its frame and brought to Sombor. There it was taken apart down to the last piece; damaged glass was replaced, missing parts were made new, and the faces, hands and drapery were painted and fired in the kiln. Every window was then leaded in new lead came, sealed with liquid putty against water, cleaned and carried back to Sarajevo to be set in its frame.

From medallions to full figures

The themes stayed the same, but the windows did not. Stevan designed the new windows, and with his team of artists he made the saints again not as medallions but as full figures, standing on a light background of geometric lattice and leaves inside the colored borders. Each Evangelist holds his Gospel and pen, with his symbol below him and the name of the family who gave the window at the foot.

Saint Matthew Saint Mark

The glass was painted by the artist Ljila Balović. Up close, you can see her hand painting: every fold of the robes, every curl of the beards, traced and shaded on the glass before firing.

Saint Luke Saint John

Saints of the parish

Beside the Evangelists stand Saint Peter with his keys, Saint Paul with his scroll and Saint John the Baptist with his staff and cross. The Saint Paul window carries a special inscription: it was given by the pastor, don Ivan Ravlić, together with our studio. Stevan and don Ivan stayed friends after this project and later worked together again on other projects.

Saint Peter Saint Paul, gift of don Ivan Ravlić and our studio

Saint Teresa came back in her Carmelite habit, with roses and a crucifix. Music has its own windows: Saint Cecilia at the organ, a gift of the parishioners of Novo Sarajevo, and an angel with a lute under the words "Gloria in excelsis Deo", a gift of the Holy Trinity parish in Villach, Austria.

Saint John the Baptist Saint Teresa

Saint Cecilia Gloria in excelsis Deo

Back in Sarajevo

Stevan's company was the first from Serbia to work on the restoration of cultural and historical monuments in Sarajevo after the war. Besides Holy Trinity, the studio worked on the renewal of the Catholic Church of Saint Joseph in Marijin Dvor and of the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of the Nativity of the Theotokos in the center of the city. Glass does not take sides; it only lets the light back in.

The father and son story has happened before, at the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi in Bila. See more of our stained glass commissions and sacred art, or visit the parish of Novo Sarajevo.

Church: Church of the Holy Trinity, Zmaja od Bosne, Novo Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Original windows: Atelje Stanišić, led by Milan Stanisic Senior, late 1980s
Pastor then: don Ivan Ravlić
Design: Stevan Stanisic
Glass painting: Ljila Balović
Restoration: Stevan Stanisic and his team, Atelje Stanišić, Sombor, Republic of Serbia, with Milan Stanisic Senior as advisor
Offer: 22 December 2003, addressed to pastor Ilija Miškić
Work: 10 windows, about 581 sq ft, remade as full figures