Decoration of the Church of St. Sava in Belgrade

The Russian Academy of Arts, together with the Moscow International Fund for UNESCO, presents a scientific, educational and exhibition project “Decoration of the Church of St. Sava ”, dedicated to its implementation.

The exhibition will be the first unique opportunity to present to a wide audience the full scale of the project, to transfer it to the space of the workshops that prepared the decoration of the largest Orthodox church in the Balkans. The exhibition will be located in the halls of the Museum and Exhibition Complex of the Russian Academy of Arts on an area of more than 600 square meters and will cover the entire artistic concept of the interior space of this grandiose cathedral. Draft designs will be presented here; models of the dome, conch, sails, entrance groups; colored cardboard compositions; sketches of choirs and other architectural elements of the temple. Monumental artists completed fragments of mosaics on the scale in which they exist in the cathedral, which will allow viewers to immerse themselves in the complex artistic process of creating this kind of project and, at least for a while, move into the space of the Church of St. Sava.

The exhibition demonstrates the preservation and achievements of the unique Russian school of mosaic art. The total area of the mosaics made was 17 thousand square meters, which makes the temple a real encyclopedia of Orthodox religious art, which has no analogues in the entire history of Christianity. More than 50 million tesserae (pieces of smalt) of various sizes were laid on the walls of the temple. The total weight of the entire mosaic exceeds 400 tons.

15 teams of artists totaling 350 people worked to create the mosaic decoration. Many of them are graduates of academic art universities, trainees of the Creative Workshops of Monumental Painting of the Russian Academy of Arts and members of the Russian Academy of Arts. In addition to the mosaics in the temple, according to the designs of Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts Nikolai Mukhin, 3 iconostases with icons were made, which were painted by artists of St. Tikhon’s University, 4 huge icon cases about 7 meters high with icons, a decorative marble floor was laid out and a grandiose khoros (central lamp of the temple) with a diameter of 20 was hung meters, as well as a number of choirs for the entrance groups of the temple. The exhibition halls will also show archival photographs and films about the creation of the entire project.

The traditions of the national school of monumental art and its history will be revealed in a specially designed scientific, educational and educational program. Scientific meetings and round tables, lectures and master classes from artists who took part in the project are planned for December and January.

From the moment of its founding to this day, the Academy of Arts has played a leading role not only in the creation of central monuments in Russia, but throughout the world. The creation of the decoration of the Church of St. Sava in Vracar (Belgrade) became a new page, both in the history of Christian art and for modern artistic culture.

Project curator: President of the Russian Academy of Arts, People’s Artist of the USSR and the Russian Federation Zurab Konstantinovich Tsereteli.

Project manager and support: academician and member of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Arts, Honored Cultural Worker of the Russian Federation Manana Valentinovna Popova.

The author of the project and the head of the work on the artistic decoration of the temple: academician and member of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Arts, People’s Artist of the Russian Federation Nikolai Aleksandrovich Mukhin.

The authors of the program of paintings (mosaics): Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts, Doctor of Art History Irina Leonidovna Buseva-Davydova and Academician Nikolai Aleksandrovich Mukhin.

Chief project engineer and installation manager: Evgeniy Vladimirovich Chelyshev.

Computer support of the project: Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Arts Anton Vladimirovich Stolba.

Historical information: The main temple of the Serbian Orthodox Church and the largest in the Balkans.

The site for the temple was chosen in 1894 - exactly 300 years after the Ottoman Sardar Sinan Pasha ordered the burning of the relics of St. Sava, considered a symbol of the Serbian nation. The burning took place in the square on Vracar Hill, located in the southern part of Belgrade. There it was decided to begin construction (now on this hill, in addition to the temple, the National Library of Serbia is located , as well as a vast park).

In 1905, a competition was announced, and the architects were initially expected to create monumentalism in the Serbian-Byzantine style. None of the five projects submitted were considered worthy. The second competition, due to the First World War, was announced only in 1926. This time there were 22 projects, but none of them won. Finally, in 1930, a special commission approved the construction plan presented by the young architects Bogdan Nestorovich and Alexander Deroko .

Construction work began in 1935. By 1939, walls 12 meters high were erected, but construction was suspended due to World War II . It was not resumed during almost the entire communist era, and only in 1985 did the authorities allow work to begin again. The dome was completed in 1989, and by 2004 the main construction work was completed. In the same year, the official opening of the temple took place. In March 2008, the chapel of the cathedral was consecrated in honor of the holy martyrs Hermilus and Stratonik. Measuring 91 m × 81 m and covering an area of 7570 m², the Church of St. Sava is approximately the same size as St. Sophia Cathedral. The diameter of the dome is 30 m, the height to the top of the dome is 65 m.

On March 16, 2012, a Protocol was signed in Moscow between the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia on Russian participation in the work to create the artistic decoration of the Church of St. Sava.

In 2014, an All-Russian open competition was announced for the design of the interior decoration of the Church of St. Sava in Belgrade, the winner of which was the project of academician Nikolai Mukhin, representing the Russian Academy of Arts.

On August 30, 2016, in Belgrade, at the residence of the President of Serbia (at that time Mr. Tomislav Nikolic), an agreement was signed to begin work on the beautification of the temple. It was signed by His Holiness Serbian Patriarch Irinej, President of the Republic of Serbia Mr. Tomislav Nikolic, Deputy General Director of Gazprom Neft PJSC Alexander Dybal, Vice-President of the Moscow International Fund for UNESCO Manana Popova.

Work on the decoration of the temple began in September 2016.

January 17, 2019, in Serbia , during the official visit of Russian President V.V. Putin, our head of state visited the Church of St. Sava in Belgrade, in which at that time masters of the Russian Academy of Arts were installing mosaics. During their stay at the temple, His Holiness the Serbian Patriarch Irinej, President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic and President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin symbolically completed work on the image of the mosaic of the Savior Not Made by Hands Jesus Christ, putting in the missing fragments and left autographs on the draft design according to which the temple was decorated.