page_title: Church of Saint Sava
section_title: Interior
hierarchical_section_title: Church of Saint Sava / Architecture / Interior
caption_attribution_description: English: Works on interior decoration in the church of Saint Sava in Belgrade - visit of Aleksandar Vucic and Patriarch Irenej
context_page_description: The Church of Saint Sava is a Serbian Orthodox church which sits on the Vračar plateau in Belgrade, Serbia. It was planned as the bishopric seat and main cathedral of the Serbian Orthodox Church. The church is dedicated to Saint Sava, the founder of the Serbian Orthodox Church and an important figure in medieval Serbia. It is built on the presumed location of St. Sava's grave. His coffin had been moved from Mileševa Monastery to Belgrade. It was placed on a pyre and burnt in 1595 by Ottoman Grand Vizier Sinan Pasha. Bogdan Nestorović and Aleksandar Deroko were finally chosen to be the architects in 1932 after a second revised competition in 1926/27. This sudden decision instigated an important debate in interwar Yugoslavia which centred around the temple's size, design and symbolic national function. This was accompanied by a sizeable increase in the base area of the ambitiously conceived project. The new design departed from the competition guidelines issued in 1926, and was to replicate the dimensions and architecture of Hagia Sophia.
  The first stone was laid in 1935. When Yugoslavia was under occupation in 1941, the construction was approximately ten metres high.
context_section_description: The interior with naos, three side arms and the altar has a surface area of 3,600 m² (38,750 sq ft) on the ground floor, with three galleries of 1,500 m² (16,146 sq ft) on the first level, and a 120 m² (1,292 sq ft) gallery on the second level. The church can hold 10,000 faithful. The choir gallery seats 800 singers. The basement contains a crypt, the treasury of Saint Sava, and the grave church of Saint Lazar the Hieromartyr, with a total surface of 1,800 m² (19,375 sq ft).
  The church will offer a permanent exhibiton to the construction of the church, a bell information gallery and one that informs on the life of Saint Sava. At the northeastern and southestern pillar, two elevators are being installed to reach the dome galleries. The northern and southern entrence halls have baptism fonts, a third at gallery level is on the norhtern side of the altar.
  The material of the sixteen great columns in the choir were imported from Italy in 1939. The capitals are made of Carrara marble, the columns by green marble from Baveno. The motifs of the capitals were designed by Aleksandar Deroko and were largely executed by Josif Grassi before WW II.
  The main iconostasis is made of iron trusses on which slabs of Carrara marble will be installed. The whole construction of the approximately 20 metre-wide iconostasis will weigh 100 tonnes. It will be decorated with mosaic icons. Work on the iconostasis as of August 20 2020 was in progres. It will consist of one row of icons.  
  The great central wheel chandelier (choros) is the main circular lightning device of the church and will be cast in bronze. With a diameter of 20 m, it will weigh approximately 14 tonnes. The chandelier in Saint Sava will be the greatest and heaviest choros of the world. The author of the chandelier is Nikolaj Mukhin, who also designed the mosaic decoration in the church. It will be decorated with wooden icons. The chandelier at 7,5 m above the floor basement in the circular space below the dome will be attached with 12 suspension chains to anchors in the church walls. With its decoration of stylized ornaments it will be reminiscent of the Serbian choroi of the middle ages for which Serbian kings had been royal patrons. The two who at least were commissioned by royal patrons are those from Dečani Monastery in Kosovo and Metohija and Markov Monastery near Skopje which have been preserved until today.
caption: Site of the altar with work on iconostasis in progres as of August 20 2020