Belgrade, Church of St. Petka

Emergencies, daily needs, especially during the Covid pandemic, must not make us forget the history and beauty of a city. Adjacent to the walls of the Belgrade fortress – Kalemegdan, there is an oldest Belgrade church built in honor of St. Petka, great Balkan Christian-Orthodox ascetic. Constructed on the spot of the miraculous wellspring of St. Petka in 1937, next to previously errected Church Ružica, this chapel, in fact, represents the new version of much older chapel (built around 1400 ) which was later destroyed.

In addition to the project “Make a WISH to the Order of Malta”, the Embassy of the Sovereign Order of Malta has been providing for years valuable support to the Shelter for Children in Belgrade through the project “A hot Meal in a cold Winter”. The Shelter is an institution which provides assistance to the most vulnerable categories of young people from all over Serbia. These are children aged 7 to 18, often victims of violence, abuse and neglect, victims of human trafficking, children without parental care.

Belgrade, Christmas 2020

“Make a WISH to the Sovereign Order of Malta” continues its engagement

and collects children’s wishes from Serbia even in the time of Covid-19.The Embassy of the Sovereign Order of Malta in Belgrade wants to participate, together with HRH Crown Prince Aleksandar Karadjordjevic and Princess Katarina, in the common aim of making Christmas sweet and with special greetings to kids in Children’s Homes.

Kovin, November 15

For the Sovereign Order of Malta, the Fourth World day of the poor is not only a moment of participation but it is, above all, a moment of help. This is the reason that the Embassy of the Order of Malta in Belgrade decided to give help to the Psychiatric Hospital “Kovin” in Kovin. It is the largest psychiatric hospital in the Republic of Serbia that deals with the treatment of neuropsychiatric patients from the entire territory of Serbia. It has over 600 beds for hospital treatment and for specialist visits also in day hospital.

Fra’ Marco Luzzago has been elected with a large majority Lieutenant of the Grand Master of the Sovereign Order of Malta. The Council Complete of State, the electoral body, met on 7 and 8 November in the Magistral Villa in Rome, one of the Order of Malta’s two institutional seats. All phases of the election were caried out in full compliance with anti-Covid measures.

There were 44 participants at the Council Complete of State out of the 56 entitled to vote. They came to Rome from Argentina, Peru, the United States, Lebanon, France, Sweden, Austria, Germany, Holland, Spain, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Malta and Italy.

Belgrade – Istanbul, November

Sometimes the Embassy of the Sovereign Order of Malta to the Republic of Serbia receives extremely urgent requests for help. As part of the Embassy project “Make a WISH to the Sovereign Order of Malta”, we recently received one of these “WISHes”. The request for an emergency operation was sent to us by a gentleman from Serbia, artist and professor at the University of Belgrade.  He was in need of urgent surgical intervention with Gamma knife, ie. intracranial stereotactic radiosurgery technique. For this type of surgery, it is necessary to have advanced equipment that allows the application of high doses of radiation with extreme precision to the target structure of the skull (nerve, ganglion or brain area) while preserving the surrounding structures. There are few of them in Serbia and the waiting list for this intervention is very long.

Belgrade, July-October 2020

It seems so far in time when on July 31, 2019 we received a “Make a WISH” request from the Clinical Center of the Republic of Serbia. Their desire was to introduce a new procedure into the clinical practice – Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy (SDR) which is used to relieve pain and spasticity in children with cerebral palsy. For these young patients the only possibility for medical treatment was to be sent abroad, at the expenses of the National Health Service. The very expensive treatment of Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy is a surgical method that partially intersects certain sensitive fibers in the spinal canal.

Belgrade, Dec. 13

Sometimes we receive a letter at the Embassy with request for a “WISH” that is also a birthday present. Such a case occurred last month when we got a “Make a WISH to the Order of Malta” letter from Marija P, a 17-year-old girl from Valjevo (a town in Western Serbia) just around her birthday on November 14.