Church of Saint Sava

About

The Church of Saint Sava (Serbian: Храм Светог Саве, romanized: Hram Svetog Save, lit. ''The Temple of Saint Sava'') is a Serbian Orthodox church in Belgrade, capital of Serbia. It is the fourth largest Eastern Orthodox church in the world and one of the largest churches in the world by gross volume. The church is dedicated to Saint Sava, the first Serbian archbishop and the nation's patron saint. It was symbolically built on the site where his relics were burned on a pyre by the Ottomans in 1594 following a Serb uprising. Construction of the church began in 1935 and was completed only in 2004, when the exterior was finished, and in 2020, when work on the interior was completed, following decades of interrupted construction, wars, and political turmoil. With its monumental exterior inspired by the Hagia Sophia, the Church of Saint Sava is one of Belgrade’s most recognizable landmarks and a major tourist attraction.

Saint Sava (1175–1235), the patron saint of the Serb people, was born as Rastko, a Serbian prince and the son of Stefan Nemanja (r. 1166–1196). Rastko took monastic vows under the name Sava and was later joined by his father, who became the monk Simeon, at Mount Athos, an important center of Eastern Orthodox monasticism, where the Byzantine emperor granted them Hilandar. Sava returned to Serbia after Simeon's death and organized the Serbian Church, and was later consecrated as the first Serbian Archbishop. Sava died in 1236 and was later canonized.

In 1594, Serbs rose up against Ottoman rule in Banat, during the Long Turkish War which was fought at the Austrian-Ottoman border in the Balkans. The Serbian patriarchate and rebels had established relations with foreign states, and had in a short time captured several towns, although the uprising was quickly suppressed. The rebels had, in the character of a holy war, carried war flags with the icon of Saint Sava. Ottoman Grand vizier Sinan Pasha ordered that the sarcophagus and relics of Saint Sava at the Mileševa Monastery be brought by military convoy to Belgrade. As a form of retaliation against the rebels, the Ottomans publicly incinerated the relics on 27 April 1595, burning them on a pyre erected on the Vračar plateau and scattering the ashes, with the blaze visible across the Danube.

On the 300th anniversary of the burning of Saint Sava's relics in 1894, an initiative was launched to build a church dedicated to Saint Sava, leading to the establishment of the Society for the Construction of the Church of Saint Sava on Vračar the following year. The search for a site provoked debate as the exact location of the burning remained disputed. Presumed locations included Crveni Krst, suggested by Gligorije Vozarović [ sr ] who erected Vozarev Cross at the spot; Tašmajdan, which is the prevailing view in modern historiography; and the Vračar plateau, which enjoyed the widest public support at the time and was ultimately selected as the site. Most of the land donated for the construction was provided by Francis Mackenzie, a Scottish missionary credited with acquiring and developing this area of the city. By the 1900 decree of King Alexander I, the planned church was declared a "national edifice". Initially a small church was constructed and the search began to find an adequate design.

In 1906, an architectural design competition for the future church was announced. Imperial Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences, authorized to select the winning design, rejected all five applications as insufficient. Meanwhile, there was a public debate over the project, with Croatian sculptor Ivan Meštrović proposing the building of a Yugoslavist " Vidovdan Temple" at Gazimestan in 1905 instead, a scale model which was exhibited at Serbia's pavilion at the 1911 International Exhibition of Art and the full-scale model exhibited in London in 1915. The Balkan Wars and World War I stopped all construction activities. After the war, in 1919, the Society for the Construction of the Church of Saint Sava on Vračar was re-established and the idea for the memorial church transformed into a more ambitious project.

Another architectural design competition was announced in 1926 with the design guidelines stating that the church should be the "greatest and most monumental building in the country, and have ultimate artistic importance". Beside the church itself, the project was to include buildings for the Patriarchate, Eastern Orthodox Seminary, and the Ministry of Religion. The church design was to be in the style of the Serbo-Byzantine architecture of the 14th century. The Patriarch Dimitrije, on the other hand, envisioned a church built in the late Byzantine " Morava style ", with an area of 3,000 sq m, a tower of 80 m, offering space to 6,000 faithful. Dimitrije favoured Serbian and Russian graduates of the Vienna Academy of Arts which figured prominently in the 1926–27 competition. The 1926–27 competition saw entries from major architects in the country; besides Bogdan Nestorović [ sr ] and Aleksandar Deroko, entries came from Dragiša Brašovan, Milan Zloković, Milutin Borisavljević, Branko Krstić, Petar Krstić, Žarko Tatić, Aleksej Papkov, Miladin Prljević, among others. The architectural design selection committee included Patriarch Dimitrije, Jovan Cvijić, Andra Stevanović, Bogdan Popović, Pera Popović, and Momir Korunović. The committee declined to select a winner, criticizing quality of the entries as none of them met the tender criteria. Most proposed designs were based on models of the Gračanica Monastery as the main representative of Serbian medieval architecture. It is believed that the Jury had recommended the two models.

With no declared winner, the project remained dormant until the "Society for the Construction of the Church of Saint Sava on Vračar" asked the University of Belgrade Faculty of Architecture in 1930 to delegate "two specialists" to join the Society and Nestorović (awarded 2nd place) in further elaborating his design. The faculty proposed Dragutin Ðorđević and Aleksandar Deroko, with Deroko subsequently joining Nestorović in the project. The new sketches resembled Hagia Sophia and not the Morava style or Gračanica Monastery as previously. The Society under charimanship of Patriarch Varnava had chosen Hagia Sophia as the new basis for design. There were some debates regarding the project before and during this planning stage, with complaints that such an immense monument should be Yugoslav in nature, given the fact that the cult of Saint Sava was a largely Serb heritage. During the debate, some even pushed for the construction of the "Vidovdan Temple" instead. Especially vocal was art historian Kosta Strajnić [ sh ], whose supporters opted for the "Yugoslav, not Serbian Pantheon". They also rejected the Byzantine design, as it only symbolized Serbs and not the Croats and Slovenes, as the other two "tribes" of one Yugoslav nation. Meštrović supported Strajnić, insisting that the new "Yugoslav style" should be created, instead of the religious architecture that would fit only one of the denominations. King Alexander I Karađorđević publicly didn't support any solution, but privately pushed for Meštrović's temple, as he was a major proponent of Yugoslavism and Meštrović, as the most important Yugoslavist artist at the time, was his favorite.

As they developed the project, Nestorović and Deroko reflected the growing enthusiasm of one part of the population that wanted Belgrade to have one of the largest Eastern Orthodox churches in the world. The size, height and weight of the dome were meant to surpass the grandeur of Hagia Sophia. From the initially planned 60x60m, the church had grown to 80x90m. The enlarged diameter of the dome was to compete with the great domed cathedrals of late antiquity, renaissance, baroque, and historicism. Thus, the Hagia Sophia was the only reference for the synthetic redraft of the Nestorović–Deroko design, as it features a dome with an initial diameter of 33 m. As it had served as the cathedral of the Byzantine capital, its design was naturally imposed on Belgrade, as it was more appropriate for its urban context than the smaller monasterial churches of rural areas. With this, the idea of orienting the project toward Serbian architectural tradition (Morava style) was abandoned. This decision was highly criticised by public, but not by the professional community, which did not find strong arguments for building such a large church based on national tradition alone. Instead, attention turned to the homogeneity of interior space, as so successfully achieved in the universally acclaimed Hagia Sophia. Through the evolution of the model, Nestorović synthesized this approach with Deroko's proposal into a final design, which echoed the proportions of the Hagia Sophia and paraphrased several of its architectural features, while still creating an interior space of its own character. It features a strictly centrally planned design with four apses, resulting in a dense yet spacious and intimate interior.

As Hagia Sofia had been the cathedral of the Byzantine capital, its design was naturally imposed on Belgrade as it was more appropriate for its urban context, than minor monastic churches of rural areas. With it, the idea to orient to national tradition was abandoned. This decision was highly criticised by public opinion, but not by the professional public, which didn't find many arguments for the proposal of building such a great church on the basis of the national tradition. The homogeneity of the interior space had come into consideration, which had been so successfully accomplished in the universally acclaimed Hagia Sophia. With the evolution of the model, Nestorović synthesized this with the proposal of Deroko into a final model, which resembled the dimensions of the Hagia Sophia and paraphrased several of its architectural achievements, but had created an interior space of its very own. It had a strictly centrally planned design with four apses which create a very dense, spacious and yet intimate interior.

Forty years after the initial idea, construction of the church began on 10 May 1935, based on the design of Aleksandar Deroko and Bogdan Nestorović, with the assistance of civil engineer Vojislav Zađina. The cornerstone was laid by Metropolitan Gavrilo Dožić of Montenegro and the Littoral, future Patriarch Gavrilo V.

Construction continued until the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941, by which point the foundation had been completed and the walls had been raised to heights of 7 and 11 meters. The occupying German army used the unfinished church as a parking lot, while in 1944 the Red Army, and later the Yugoslav People's Army, used it for the same purpose. It was subsequently used as a storage site by various construction companies. The granite slabs, intended for the construction of the church, were used for the building of the Tomb of People's Heroes in 1948, in the Kalemegdan Park.

After the end of World War II, the construction site was closed due to the changing political situation and the dominant Communist ideology in the Socialist Yugoslavia. The Communist authorities identified as atheists and rejected the Serbian Orthodox Church's request to continue construction. The unfinished structure was instead used as a playground, and even various circus troupes made use of it. Patriarch German personally championed the project, and during his tenure one of his main concerns was the resumption of construction. For several decades, he submitted 88 requests to various government agencies, all of which were rejected.

In 1966, the Executive Council of the Socialist Republic of Serbia persuaded the Serbian Orthodox Church to agree to roof the foundation walls and convert them into a museum dedicated to Saint Sava or a gallery of frescoes. The Church later withdrew its consent and continued to demand the resumption of construction. Permission was finally granted in 1984 by Dušan Čkrebić, then President of the Presidency of the Socialist Republic of Serbia, who made use of a legal loophole: the original ban had been issued as a political stance by the Communist Party leadership, but it had never been formally enacted by any state body or published in the Official Gazette. Therefore, no formal repeal or new legislation was required. This decision was widely reported by media and became a public sensation. On 12 May 1985, thousands of people gathered to celebrate with the Serbian Patriarch and bishops a liturgy inside the walls of unfinished church.

Architect Branko Pešić was selected as the new architect and he revised the original design by Deroko and Nestorović in order to make better use of new materials and building techniques. Construction resumed on 12 August 1985. The original design project proposed a structure composed of masonry and partly reinforced concrete. The four central bell towers were founded on 532 "Simplex" piles, 6 meters in depth. The massive perimeter walls rest on strip foundations 4 metres deep. The various materials used (brick, concrete, reinforcement, marble, etc.) were quality-checked. A detailed survey of the existing structure was conducted, and the as-built outlines were determined and served as a starting point for further design and construction work. The original base-level design of brick and concrete was cancelled. These lower levels were preserved with the foundation structure, which had to be repaired. The four-wing section had to be separated from the central part by way of expansion joints, between the semi-domes and the main arches, and vertically down the bell towers up to the foundations. Reinforced concrete columns and tie-beams tied up the foundations and future structures. With new materials and design methods, the weight was reduced by 30 to 40%. While the initial foundations were only 6 m deep, the new ones, with a diameter of 1.4 m, reached a depth of 17 m and extended to solid rock.

The continued construction was designed as a fully prefabricated reinforced concrete structure. Due to the geometrically complex form and its structural requirements, individual elements had to be broken down into precast components defined, to the greatest possible extent, by straight lines. The walls were designed as hollow boxes, which, when assembled, give the building its massive appearance. All arched forms of the galleries and vaults were transformed into assemblies of elements curved in two dimensions, which, once erected, formed three-dimensional shapes. The semi-domes and the main dome were linearized through a system of arched trusses and two layers of curved decking. The precast parts were tied into a unified whole by in-situ cast concrete elements, which provided the required structural safety and longevity. The bell towers were initially constructed as a combination of brick and concrete columns and were later continued as concrete box structures to ensure maximum resistance and minimal weight. This part of the building was completed using the slip-form (sliding shuttering) method, which offers the advantages of continuous casting.

Lifting of the 4,000-ton central dome by lift-slab method The greatest achievement of the construction process was the lifting of the 4,000-ton central dome, which had been built on the ground together with the copper plate and the cross, and was later lifted onto the vaulted arches. It took 20 days using specially constructed hydraulic machines and was completed on 26 June 1989, symbolically two days before the commemoration of the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo. After the lifting of the dome, the pendentive was assembled at ground level beneath the main dome and then lifted again by hydraulic machines. With this work, the structural part of the church was completed.

The works were halted again during the 1990s as a consequence of the breakup of Yugoslavia, the subsequent Yugoslav Wars, and the economic collapse caused by international sanctions against Serbia.

Construction resumed in the early 2000s, and the exterior, including the façade and the installation of bells, was completed by 2004.

Work on the church's interior began in 2016 with the installation of mosaics and was completed in 2020.

Approximately 100 million euros were allocated to the construction and decoration of the church, including 40 million for mosaics, 10 million for other interior works, and around 50 million for the exterior construction. Of this sum, 43 million came from Serbian government, 10 million was donated by the Russian government, and the remainder was financed through private donations.