CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. NICHOLAS – Sremski Karlovci

In the 16th century, on the place of the present Cathedral Church there was a smaller church dedicated to the same saint. In 1758, Metropolitan Pavle Nenadović decided to tear down the old church and to start building the new Cathedral Church on its place. The foundations were consecrated on the 7th May 1758, and with the donation of the Metropolis, people and monasteries, it was built in four years according to the plan made in Vienna. Cathedral Church was built in Baroque style as a three-nave cathedral. On the front part of the church two big bell towers stand out and a smell one in between them. On the windows there is stained glass, the work of German masters and above the quire apse there is the stained glass of Saint Nicolas. In the alter space there is a huge iconostasis painted by Teodor Kračun, who died tragically, and Jakov Orfelin. Kračun painted the faces of Evangelists in the corners of cubed and the icons in the upper part of the iconostasis, which were over gilded with 24-carrat gold. Jakov Orfelin finished the works on the iconostasis. At the bottom of the iconostasis, on the right side, there is the Icon of Virgin Mary with Jesus Christ, the work of unknown Russian masters dating from the 14th century. Within the alter space lie one part of relics of St. Arsenije Sremac, the disciple of St. Sava and his successor on the archiepiscopate throne. Between the alter part and the nave there are two thrones – on the right for the patriarch, and on the left for the king or the crown prince. During the time of Georgie Branković, a famous Serbian painter Paja Jovanović made c couple of paintings with the scenes from The Ola and the New Testimony, on the order of the Patriarch himself. He also did four compositions where the events from the medieval Serbian history are presented. The facade of Cathedral Church was redecorated in 1909/10, during the time of Patriarch Lukijan Bogdanović, according to the project of Vladimir Nikolić. In the crypt of The Cathedral Church almost all the metropolis and patriarchs from Karlovci were buried, except Arsen III and IV, whose remains lie in Monastery Krušedol and patriarchs Georgije Branković and Lukijan Bogdanović, whose remains lie in The Upper Church, specially built for this purpose because of frequent floods.