November 30, 2011
The 5-ton, stone-and-steel construction is equipped with a cross, a bell tower, an altar, and frescoes. It can accommodate up to 15 worshipers.
The enterprise was initiated by Svetislav Mancic and his son Goran from the town of Gadzin Han, close to the southern Serbian city of Nis.
Svetislav Mancic, founder of the interior- and exterior-design company Mancic Granit, tells RFE/RL's Balkan Service that he came up with this idea when portable churches were used to hold services in the army. He says he quickly realized that there was likely a wider market for such mobile churches.
"It will be available in every restaurant that organizes weddings, in hotels, motels, and hospitals," says the older Mancic. "The only thing that we need is a blessing from the Serbian Orthodox Church, and we don't need any construction permits and approvals."
Svetislav Mancic describes the sales and delivery process in simple terms. "We load it onto a truck and deliver it to the address. The church is painted with frescoes, you just have to take a cable and connect it to electricity and you are ready in 10 minutes," he says. "It also has a bell that weights 17 kilograms and you make a sound by pulling the rope, but it can also be electronic."
The portable church can be ordered online, with the cheapest model selling for about 12,000 euros ($16,000). The price, however, varies depending on each client's individual needs, such as the quality of stone, size of the cross, bell, and altar.
Svetislav's son says that the churches have already has attracted a lot of public attention. "People are asking about it. Some of them want the bigger one, some of them want the smaller one, even though this is still an experimental model," he says. "We are still testing the market."
"A man who has a private cemetery in Svrljig contacted us," Goran says. "We also had a case of a man who wants to put it next to his weekend house and he wants it to be small. I also spoke with the owner of the restaurant on Belgrade-Nis highway."
The Mancic family says it has orders for its mobile churches but hasn't completed any sales yet. Before that happens, they need to get clearance from Orthodox authorities to assure that each construction has been constructed according to its rules and standards.
Svetislav Mancic says this should happen very soon. "We are about to get a blessing from the Bishop of Nis," he says. "We already held talks, they checked the church, and by the end of the week we will have their blessing."