CHURCH OF THE ARCHANGELS-MICHAEL AND-GABRIEL

This Serbian Orthodox church (Crkva Svetih Arhanđela Mihaila i Gavrila/Црква Светих Арханђела Михаила и Гаврила) is the oldest building in the city. Probably founded in the 14th century, it is first mentioned by an Ottoman source in 1539. Known as the "Old Orthodox Church" (Stara Pravoslavna Crkva), it is now little used by the town's small Bosnian-Serb community and is more like a museum. The visit is pleasant. Behind the wall along the noisy street Mula-Mustafe-Bašeskije where streetcars pass, one discovers a quiet courtyard. On the right, a building houses a store, a few chairs for coffee and, above all, a gallery of icons, the most precious of which date back to the 13th century. The center of the courtyard is occupied by the church. Several times burned and reworked until 1793, it was given its bell tower after the departure of the Ottomans in 1880. Through the side doors surmounted by frescoes of the archangels Michael and Gabriel, then a few steps, one reaches the nave surrounded by arches and a gallery. It contains Greek, Russian and Serbian icons of the 16th-18th centuries. But the centerpiece is the golden iconostasis of the eighteenth century. It serves as a support for seventeenth-century icons executed by the prolific Serbian painters Zograf Radul and Avesalom Vujičić. Upstairs, the gallery formerly reserved for women contains, among other things, a child's coffin and the relics of an unknown saint.