St. Mark’s Church

St. Mark’s Church in Tašmajdan was built from 1931 to 1940, next to an old church dating from 1835. The project designers were architects Petar and Branko Krstić. The shape is characteristic of the Serbo-Byzantine style in architecture. Considering its type of construction, architectural forms and the polychromy of the facades, it was modeled after the monastic church in Gračanica. The interior furnishing and decoration still haven’t been finished. The Church of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist Mark in Belgrade was the largest Orthodox church in pre-war Yugoslavia. It is situated on a hill top at the northwestern end of the Tašmajdan Park (the old quarry). Today’s church is found in the immediate vicinity of the older, small cemetery chapel of St. Mark from the era of Prince Miloš Obrenović. The old church was built in 1835 on the foundations of an even older Palilula Church, in front of which the Hatt-I Sharif of the Turkish Sultan was read in 1830, promising the Principality of Serbia autonomy within the Turkish empire. Due to its special architectural and urbanistic qualities, St. Mark’s Church in Belgrade has been declared a cultural landmark. A sarcophagus positioned in the south part of the naos holds the relics of Emperor Dušan, which were transferred here owing to the efforts of the theologist and historian Radoslav Grujić, having been taken from the Emperor’s endowment monastery of the Holy Archangels near Prizren in 1927 and moved first to the Patriarchate and then to St. Mark’s Church in 1968. On the north side lies a white marble tomb with the earthly remains of Patriarch German Djorić. The last rulers from the Obrenović dynasty, King Aleksandar Obrenović and his wife Draga Mašin, are buried in the church’s crypt. The church has one of the richest collections of Serbian 18th and 19th century icons. The old church, which was commissioned by Prince Miloš to mark the historical place where the Hatt-I Sharif had been read, stood right next to the big church; however, it was destroyed in the 1941 bombing of Belgrade and the ruins were cleared in 1942.