Church of the Burning of the Relics of St. Sava (Hanover)
The Church of the burning of the relics of St. Sava. ( Serbian : Црква спаљивања моштију светог Саве, Crkva spaljivanja moštiju svetog Save) is a Serbian Orthodox Church in the Lower Saxon state capital Hanover in northern Germany .
It was built from 1993 to 2000. The church building is dedicated to the event when the Ottomans under Sinan Pasha demonstratively burned the relics of the Serbian national saint , the first archbishop and the illuminator of the Serbian people, Sava of Serbia on the Vračar hill in Belgrade .
It is the parish church of the parishes Hannover I and II and the parish of the same name in the deanery of North and East Germany, the eparchy of Düsseldorf and all of Germany of the Serbian Orthodox Church .
location
The church is located in the List district of the 2nd district of Hanover Vahrenwald-List in the northeastern urban area in Mengendamm 16c. Next to the church there is also the Church of the Three Hierarchs of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Germany . The area is also known as the Orthodox Center in Hanover.
history
History of the parish
The first Serbs who lived in Hanover were listed in a census in 1902 during the time of the German Empire . It was about the family of Kliment Kosarčev. After the First World War , the Serbian Jovanović family also lived in the city with two children.
After Osnabrück , the city of Hanover is one of the first important places (germ cells) of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Germany. The Serbian Orthodox Church in Lower Saxony is represented by three parishes in Hanover, Osnabrück and Lingen .
After the end of the Second World War in 1945, many Serbs found themselves in Hanover and Lower Saxony. During the war , most of them had been abducted as former members of the army of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia as prisoners of war for forced labor in the city. Many of these prisoners were mostly officers who were interned in the POW camp in Osnabrück and who came to Hanover after the end of the war.
Among them was the priest monk Dositej (Obradović), who was the first Serbian priest in Hanover from 1945 to 1958. Dositej was taken prisoner by Germany and found himself in Hanover after the surrender. He later emigrated to North America .
The first Divine Liturgy should therefore have taken place in one of the English barracks immediately after the end of the war in 1945 .
The priest monk Dositej was followed by priest Toma Lilić from 1958 to 1974. Under very difficult circumstances, he began to organize worship and church life. Since a large number of the Serbs were employed as civilian auxiliaries in military units, they succeeded in holding their first services in the original military barracks and later camps for the displaced persons .
In addition to the Serbs, many Russians , Poles , Romanians and Ukrainians also lived in these facilities. Priest Lilić was the priest in charge of all Orthodox Christians .
In early April 1958, Father Lilić made a list of the members of the Provisional Commission. This commission was set up to better organize church life. Her priority was to plant a parish, find a permanent place for church services, register with the German authorities, and help unemployed parishioners. After the announcement to the faithful , the first meeting took place on June 28, 1959, the Vidovdan .
In 1958 the Serbian school and the church choir of the community were founded. First teacher was Ljubinko Kovaćević.
In 1960 , the parish found a permanent liturgy in the St. Anna chapel of Hanover's oldest church, the Evangelical Lutheran Kreuzkirche , with the support of the Protestant pastor Horst Alpeter. The chapel was soon renovated and prepared for Orthodox worship.
The iconostasis was built by a member of the parish , Janko Vuksanović, and the icons were painted by Mladomir Todorović, professor of the Serbian Orthodox theological faculty in Prizren . In addition to the chapel, the parish received a meeting room.
In the 1980s, the influx of Yugoslavs in and around Hanover increased significantly. Many of the newcomers got involved in the parish. The aid organization Circle of Serbian Sisters was founded in 1981 and the community's folklore group a year later.
The chapel soon became too small for all parishioners. The decision to build the church was made on December 11, 1988 at a meeting of the parish. With the Greeks , who also wanted to build their own church at the time, it was possible to win over the responsible city authorities for a joint location. The two churches were built next to each other on the purchased property.
From 1974 to 1976 Priest Lilić was followed by the priest monk Metodije (Lazić), he later emigrated to Sweden . And from 1976 to 2019 the now retired Archpriest Milan Pejić was head of the church. The priest of the first parish of Hanover and current priest of the church has been Aleksandar Perković since March 2019 and the parish priest of the second parish is Archpriest Branislav Čortanovački. The parish deacon is Slavko Bosančić.
In addition to church activities, parish members come together at the community center for religious, language or dance lessons.
Church of the Burning of the Relics of St. Sava
In 1993 the construction work on the two Orthodox churches received the blessing of the Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I (Archondonis) . On December 4, 1993, the foundations of the church were consecrated by the then bishop of the Eparchy of Düsseldorf and all of Germany (at that time still called Eparchy Central Europe) Konstantin (Đokić) .
The small church consecrated in 1995 with the blessing of the Serbian Patriarch Pavle (Stojčević) by the then bishop and current Serbian Patriarch Irinej (Gavrilovic) , the then Bishop of the Eparchy of Constantine and the Vicar Bishop of the Metropolitan performed the Metropolis of Germany Chrysostom. From then on, the first services were celebrated in the church. The Serbs also left the St. Anna chapel in 1995 after 35 years of use.
After completion, the church was inaugurated on June 1, 2000 by Patriarch Pavle (Stojčević), together with the Bishop of the Eparchy Šabac - Valjevo Lavrentije (Trifunović) and Bishop Konstantin (Đokić).
architecture
The cross-domed church is designed in the shape of a triconch and was built in the traditional Serbian-Byzantine architectural style based on a design by the well-known Belgrade architect Predrag Ristić .
The plan of the church is a Greek cross , with a semicircular altar - apse in the east and a central round dome that rises above the tambour in the center of the nave . The main entrance to the church is on the west side and is connected to the rectory via a glass atrium. There is another entrance to the church on the south side. In the rectory there is an apartment and the office for the pastor priest as well as a parish hall.
The interior of the church was painted by the two academic painters Danica Kokanović and Milosav Mladenović from Belgrade with Byzantine frescoes according to the old Serbian art of painting. This makes it unique in all of northern Germany.
The iconostasis comes from the old chapel and has been adapted for the new room. The icons of the iconostasis as well as the icons on the two thrones of the church and the marbling of the wood of the iconostasis were painted or made by Gisela and Stanislaus Cimbauer and given to the church. The doors of the iconostasis were carved on Mount Athos and given to the parish by the Greek Metropolitan of Ouranoupolis. The icon of St. Sava above the main entrance was made and donated by the icon painter Krstana Tasić.
A chapel and a baptistery were built directly under the altar area of the church . The chapel is dedicated to St. Simeon Mirotočivi . Not far from the church there is a building dedicated to the Holy Father Nicholas for lighting candles.
Web links
- Article about the church on the old side of the eparchy , (Serbian / German)
- Article about the church on the website of the Working Group of Christian Churches in Lower Saxony , (German)
- Article about the parish of Hanover on the new page of the eparchy , (Serbian / German)
- Article about the new parish priest and information about the parish history , (Serbian)
Coordinates: 52 ° 23 '53.3 " N , 9 ° 45' 39.9" E