Peter and Paul Cathedral (Bosanski Petrovac)
The Peter and Paul Cathedral ( Serbian : Саборна црква Светих апостола Петра и Павла, Saborna crkva Svetih apostola Petra i Pavla) in Bosanski Petrovac is a Serbian Orthodox and Herzegovina cathedral in western Bosnia .
The cathedral was built by Bosanski Petrovac in 1890 as the Serbian Orthodox parish church and consecrated in 1891. It is dedicated to the holy apostles Peter and Paul .
It is the cathedral of the Bihać - Petrovac eparchy and belongs to the Bihać-Petrovac deanery of the Serbian Orthodox Church. It is the parish church of the Bosanski Petrovac I to III parishes. The church stands in the center of the city next to the episcopal palace of the eparchy.
History and architecture
The Peter and Paul Cathedral is the main church and largest church in the city. The construction of the single-nave church with an altar - apse in the east and a steeple in the west began in 1890 and construction was completed in the same year. It was inaugurated in 1891 by the then Metropolitan of the Metropolitan Dabrobosnien Georgije (Nikolajević).
The cathedral was severely destroyed and desecrated by the German Wehrmacht in 1941, during the Second World War . Many Serbian Orthodox church buildings in the whole of the former Yugoslavia experienced such a fate. After the end of the war in 1945, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and thus the city of Bosanski Petrovac, became part of the republic of socialist Yugoslavia . The cathedral was partially renovated in 1969/1970 and 1985/1986.
With the establishment of the Bihać-Petrovac eparchy in 1990, the former parish church of Bosanski Petrovac, as the cathedral of the newly founded eparchy, was given a new task. In the period from 1991 to 1994, at the time of the then Eparchen of the Eparchy Hrizostom (Jević) in the middle of the Bosnian War , the cathedral was completely renovated. And re-inaugurated on July 17, 1994.
But already on September 15, 1995 and the following days up to 2001, the church was damaged and desecrated several times by members of the then army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina . Many Serbian Orthodox churches in the Bosnian Krajina experienced the same fate.
Another partial renovation of the cathedral began in 2001/2002. In 2004, with the blessing of Eparchen Hrizostom, the northern and southern sides of the church interior were painted with Byzantine frescoes by the famous academic painter Mihailo Rakita . In 2008 the facade of the cathedral was completely renewed and the church bells were electrified.
Also in 2008, with the blessing and support of Serbs living in Australia , the cathedral received a copy of the most important Serbian Orthodox icon , the Tricheirousa icon of the Mother of God in the Hilandar Monastery on Mount Athos . The cathedral has, typical of Orthodox churches, an iconostasis with icons.
Web links
Coordinates: 44 ° 33 ′ 9.9 ″ N , 16 ° 22 ′ 13.9 ″ E