Church of St. Michael the Archangel (Brodac Gornji)

The . Church of St. Michael the Archangel ( Serbian : Црква Светог Архангела Михаила, Crkva Svetog Arhangela Mihaila) in the Opština (municipality) Bijeljina gehörendem village Brodac Gornji is a Serbian Orthodox parish church in the northeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina .

The church, consecrated in 1884, is dedicated to the Holy Archangel Michael . It is the parish church of the parishes Brodac I and Brodac II , in the deanery Bijeljina of the Eparchy Zvornik - Tuzla of the Serbian Orthodox Church . The Church of St. Archangel Michael is a well-known landmark of Opština Bijeljina.

location

The Church of St. Michael the Archangel is located in the center of the village of Brodac Gornji, which has around 810 inhabitants. Brodac Gornji is located in the flat plain of the Semberija , northeast of the municipality capital Bijeljina, not far from the border of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the eastern neighboring country Serbia and the two rivers Save and Drina .

The municipality of Bijeljina is located in the Republika Srpska , one of two entities in the country, with a predominantly Serbian population.

The church is surrounded by the fenced churchyard in which the old rectory from the time before the Second World War is located. This rectory was renovated in 1976 and the priest of the Second Parish of Brodac lives in it. The new rectory, the Svetosavski parohijski dom , was built from 1991 to 1995 and inaugurated in 1995 by the then bishop of the Zvornik-Tuzla Vasilije (Kačavenda) eparchy. There was still a third rectory in the churchyard from the time the church was built, this was destroyed in the Second World War. In 2004 a chapel for lighting candles was built next to the church.

In the churchyard there is also a memorial by the tomb of priest Risto Tešanović who organized the construction of the church. There is also a memorial in the churchyard where Knez Ivo von der Semberija bought the slaves from Kapetan Kulin.

There is also a memorial fountain in the churchyard, it is dedicated to all those who died for Orthodoxy, the chairmen and members of the Church Council and all the deceased who were buried on the site of today's church. The church was built on the site of an old Serbian Orthodox cemetery that had been relocated for church construction.

Not far from the church is the 150-year-old village elementary school Petar Kočić and the football field. Brodac also has a Serbian Orthodox cemetery. The oldest legible tombs date from the 19th century, although there are also older graves. The village cemeteries of the two neighboring villages Balatun and Velino Selo used to belong to the parish of Brodac.

The Slava of the village and the church is the holiday of St. Peter the Apostle , which is celebrated on July 12th.

History and architecture

From the church archive we know that there was a wooden church in Brodac as early as 1723 . This wooden church was located about 1.5 km southwest of today's church and was burned down by the Turks in 1788 . A second wooden church was built in 1790. This wooden church was closer to the present church than the previous one.

In 1806 Knez Ivo Knežević (known as Ivo od Semberije) bought the slaves of Kulin Kapetan from this wooden church. The famous Serbian poet and Gusla player Filip Višnjić celebrated this event in one of his songs. The second wooden church was burned down by the Turks in 1876 after a failed uprising in the region.

There is no data available today about when the construction of today's Church of St. Archangel Michael began and who the construction manager was. We know from the church archives that builders from northern Italy were present during the construction of the church for two years .

The single-nave church building was built in the style of baroque and classicism , with the dimensions 27 × 17 m from brick. The roofs of the church and steeples were covered with sheet copper . The church has an altar - apse in the east and two church towers with four church bells in the west. The plan of the church is an elongated Greek cross .

The church was completed in 1884 and was inaugurated by Metropolitan Dionisije (Ilijević) on July 12, St. Petar's Day of the same year .

The church was badly damaged during World War I and the church bells were removed by the Austro-Hungarian army in 1917 and the bells melted into cannonballs. After the war in 1927, the new church bells were cast in the same foundry in Sopron, Hungary, where the old ones were once bought.

After damage in the Second World War, the church facade was renovated in 1958 and rededicated by the then bishop of the Eparchy Longin (Tomić) on July 12 of the same year. The church was consecrated again on July 12, 1975 by Bishop Longin (Tomić), this time the interior of the church and the iconostasis had been renewed. The last consecration of the church took place on July 10, 2004, when the newly renovated church facade was consecrated by the then Bishop Vasilije (Kačavenda).

The church of St. Archangel Michael is not painted with Byzantine frescoes, but has frescoes that belong in the Baroque manner, especially ornaments and stars on the church ceiling. The iconostasis was carved according to the design of the architect Nikola Kolar. The carpentry work was done by Mijo Petrić.

The metal entrance portal was made by master locksmith Raboš. The icons on the iconostasis were painted by Ferdo Kikerec from the Croatian capital Zagreb . Kikerec was the court painter of the Montenegrin King Nikola Petrović .

There are three memorial plaques on the church. The first is located at the west entrance of the church and is the Ktitoren and then chairman of the District Bijeljina Franjo Plentaj dedicated. The second can also be found at the west entrance, it is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the church. While the third plaque with the names of the church donors is on the south side of the church.

Parish of Brodac

The parish of Brodac includes the two villages Brodac Gornji and Brodac Donji . The oldest church or. Parish registers date from 1884. They were stolen by the communist authorities of Yugoslavia in 1947 , but later returned and are now in the parish office. Old liturgical books from the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century are also owned by the parish and are located in the church itself, with some you can read about what it was founded.

The neighboring villages Balatun and Velino Selo were also in the parish Brodac I and II until 2014. In 2014, the two villages got their own parish Balatun-Velino Selo, with the parish church of St. Three Hierarchs .

Priest of the parish

The church archives still contain the names of those priests who still served in the old wooden churches. Priest Marko Nikolić from Mohača Polje, Priest Grigorije from Adaševci , Priest Stevo Tomić, Priest Vasilije Popović, Priest Đoko Petković from Balatun and Priest Aksentije Popović.

Served in the current church: Priest Radovan Jovanović, he died in 1911, he was an organizer of the uprising in 1876, he fled to Serbia and returned to the village with Priest Tešanović after the Austro-Hungarian seizure of power. He was followed by Risto Tešanović, he served until 1897 and died in 1900. He was buried east of the altar in the churchyard.

Đoko Cvjetković followed him from 1897. After priest Cvjetković was followed as parish priest Mihailo Jovanović, the son of priest Radovan Jovanović. Like almost all Serbian Orthodox prizes in the Bijeljina deanery, he died in 1941 under the persecution of the Croatian fascist Ustaša .

During the Second World War, the priest of the Second Parish of Međaši Stevan Popović served in the parish . From 1945 to 1954, Marinko Radulović served. From 1954 to 1958 Borivoje Koronsovac. From 1958 to 1959 Abbot (Iguman) Teofan (Dragutinović). From 1959 to 1962 Petar Madžarević. From April to September 1962 monk Arsenije (Miljković) took over the parish.

From 1962 to 1964 the already retired priest Milosav Marinković from Loznica took over the parish. From 1964 to 1966, Petar Petrović served. From 1966 to 1968 Milenko Serdarević. From 1968 to 1969 Rade Grujić. From 1969 to 1971 Ratomir Kucurić. From 1971 to 1994 Bojo Stević. Cviko Đukić was a priest of the Second Parish of Brodac from 1992 to 1996. From 1994 to 1997 Father Ratko Vračević was a priest of the parish Brodac I. And from 1997 to the present day Risto Mirković is a priest of the parish Brodac I.

swell

• Article about the church on the website of the Bijeljina deanery , (Serbian, with pictures)

Coordinates: 44 ° 51 ′ 11.6 ″  N , 19 ° 17 ′ 28.6 ″  E