Church of Saint Sava

The Church of Saint Sava is a huge white Orthodox church on the Vračar plateau in Belgrade, Serbia. It is named after Saint Sava, the first Serbian archbishop and the country's patron saint, and its green copper dome can be seen across the whole city. It is the fourth-largest Eastern Orthodox church in the world and one of the largest churches by volume.

The style is Neo-Byzantine, inspired by Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, and the church with its gold cross is about 78 metres tall. It stands on the spot where the Ottomans burned Saint Sava's remains in 1594 after a Serb uprising. Building began in 1935 and the interior was finished only in 2020. The globe shows the white church with its large central dome and a golden cross on top.

A very long building project

Work started on 10 May 1935 but stopped when Germany invaded Yugoslavia in 1941. After World War II, the communist government refused to let it continue, and the unfinished walls were used for parking and even as a playground. Work resumed in 1985.

The 4,000-ton central dome was built on the ground and lifted into place with hydraulic machines over 20 days, finishing on 26 June 1989. Work paused again in the 1990s, and the outside was finished by 2004.

A giant dome and white marble

The church is shaped like a Greek cross, 91 metres from east to west. Its dome is the largest of any Eastern Orthodox church, with an inside diameter of 30.5 metres. The dome rises to 68.5 metres, and the gold-plated cross adds 10 metres to reach 78.3 metres.

The facade covers 12,000 square metres and is made mostly of polished white marble from Greece, about 3,000 tonnes of stone. The ground floor can hold up to 7,000 worshippers.

Inside the church

Mosaics cover about 15,000 square meters of the inside walls and ceilings, designed by the artist Nikolay Mukhin, and they are counted among the largest mosaic surfaces in the Christian world. The mosaics were installed from 2016, and the interior was completed in 2020.

About 100 million euros paid for construction and decoration, including 40 million for the mosaics. Most came from the Serbian government, 10 million from the Russian government, and the rest from private donations.

On the globe

The model shows a white church with a large central dome and a golden cross on top. Look for the green dome.