Travel Report: Church of St Sava, Belgrade.

Church of St Sava, Belgrade.

August 2019.

Belgrade is a city that’s positively blessed with picturesque churches. Among the finest of these structures, I’ve already blogged about the stunning St Mark’s Church. And the exceptionally pretty St Petka’s Chapel and Ruzica Church nestled within Belgrade Fortress.

However, if I had to choose the Serbian capital’s most iconic church, it just has to be the majestic Temple of St Sava. Built in 1935, and in a near constant state of development ever since, this is the largest Orthodox church in The Balkans. Moreover, one of the biggest in the world, according to several online lists.

As you’ve almost certainly worked out, the church stands in honour of Saint Sava, a prince, priest, monk and founder of the Serbian Orthodox Church. So yeah, he was a pretty big deal, one of the most important dudes of mediaeval Serbia. In fact, during his 61 to 66 years on Earth (historians can’t be sure how long he lived), he also played a key role in laying down the first rules of Serbian law. 

Amazingly, they say the Church of St Sava stands on the site of the great man’s grave! He spent the last years of his life crossing off the world’s most important holy sights, including grand, gift-adorned visits to Jerusalem, Egypt, Armenia and Bulgaria. At some point during the trip he fell “sick”, before passing away in Bulgaria on the 27th of January 1235.

Church of St Sava, Belgrade.

Initially, the Bulgarians buried him at Holy Forty Martyrs Church in the town of Veliko Tarnovo. Some years after, following relentless requests, the Serbian church succeeded in bringing St Sava home, laying him to rest at Mileševa Monastery. Centuries later in 1594, when the Serbs began rising up against their Ottoman rulers, soldiers fought bearing flags decorated with the portrait of St Sava.

As you would imagine, this did not please Ottoman Grand Vizier Koca Sinan Pasha. Consequently, he arranged for Saint Sava’s remains to be brought to him from Mileševa Monastery. He then proceeded to burn them on a pyre atop a plateau in what some historians insist is the site of today’s church. The act, of course, meant to symbolise the burning of Serbian freedom. And it succeeded… for a while at least.

Like so many of Belgrade’s most important buildings, the Church of St Sava has had a topsy turvy history. With the city under German occupation in 1941, The Nazis employed the unfinished building as an arms depot. Legend also has it that Tito’s Partisans used it as an HQ after capturing it from the Germans in a fierce battle.

Much like St Mark’s Church, St Sava did not flourish under communist rule. Eventually, in the mid 1980s, the government allowed the church to start restoration work and indeed finish its original construction. Thus began a series of ambitious projects, including the addition of the magnificent 4000 tonne dome in 1989.

Exploring the Serbian Capital.

Fast forward to the day Sladja and I visited in August 2019 and St Sava still wasn’t finished. Actually, we arrived to find the entire nave closed off for interior decoration. Entering through a side door on the left hand side of the building, we came into a long, narrow room serving as a makeshift nave.

Here, people could go about the business of lighting candles and saying their prayers. Taking in the scene, I spied a man kneeling in front of a Virgin Mary icon. Then a woman kissing the base of a wooden Jesus on the cross. It was a bit chaotic, with visitors having to walk on a floor of plastic sheets between scattered paint pots and stepladders.

Luckily, we were able to enter the spectacular crypt, a cavernous, recently finished underground hall that houses ancient treasures of The Serbian Orthodox Church.

Designed in the Byzantine style, the crypt looks and feels like a chamber of pure gold. A palatial space with dense pillars, sweeping arches and lavish chandeliers. Furthermore, there’s an abundance of rich paintings and mosaics depicting various apostles, martyrs and saints.

Among the many frescoes, we saw a scene showing the beheading of Prince Lazar of Serbia. Celebrated as one of Serbia’s most powerful rulers and a key figure in epic Serbian poetry, Lazar died while fighting The Turks at the Battle of Kosovo in the summer of 1389. A further fresco honours the building of Ravanica Monastery, where he was buried.

Church of St Sava, Belgrade.

Elsewhere, we marvelled at the marble floor and mosaic windows made of Italian Murano glass. No wonder it has become one of Belgrade’s most sumptuous and atmospheric concert halls.

As much as I loved my two weeks exploring the Serbian capital, I never thought I’d end up living there. But then nobody saw the pandemic coming. “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans” sang John Lennon. Indeed Sladja and I had intended to live and work online across Asia for a year or two.

But in the end we only managed seven months in Cambodia followed by a couple of weeks in Turkey. In need of a long term base that would enable us to stay together, we returned to Belgrade where we could secure our short term future, grab our vaccines and get married. As fate would have it, our apartment in the neighbourhood of Vračar had a little balcony from which there was a decent view of St Sava.

On any given day, in the process of doing chores at the bank, supermarket and various stores, we’d invariably pass St Sava. Two to three times a week, I’d run past the old joint while out on a jogging route through the city.

But I think I liked it most at night. When I could glimpse at the lit up structure through the trees of pretty St Sava Park.

Exploring the Serbian Capital.

Finally, over sixteen months after we first visited, the nave reopened and we were able to see the interior in all its newfound splendour. Finished under the guidance of The Russian Academy of Arts, it is nothing short of a visual feast. Like the crypt, a golden colour scheme dominates, augmented by exceptional mosaics laid out in the Byzantine style of the 11th and 12th centuries. 

Painted images depicting Christ’s life lie spread across the four apses. And it’s impossible to take your eyes off of the grand, twelve-sided central wheel chandelier. Made of bronze and decorated with wooden icons, it is the church’s main lighting device. Almost 90 years after its construction, they say Belgrade’s Church of St Sava is “kinda finished”. It’s been a long journey, but the end result is undeniably impressive. 

Like this? Check out my many articles from across Belgrade.

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