CATHEDRAL OF THE NATIVITY OF THE MOTHER OF GOD

This Serbian Orthodox cathedral (Saborna Crkva Roždestva Presvete Bogorodice/Саборна Црква Рождества Пресвете Богородице) dominates the large Oslobođenja-Alija-Izetbegović square with its pastel yellow facade and 34-meter-high bell tower. It is the seat of the metropolis (bishopric) of Dabro-Bosna, which covers the Sarajevo region and central Bosnia. It was completed in 1872 according to the plans of Andreja Damyanov (1813-1878), an architect from what is now Northern Macedonia, from the Mijack minority, renowned for its church builders, painters and sculptors. Although targeted by the mob the day after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (June 28, 1914), it escaped the destruction of the 20th century. On the other hand, the metropolitan's palace located next door was dynamited by Bosnian nationalists during the 1992-1996 siege. The main place of worship for the small Bosnian-Serb community of Sarajevo (about 35,000 people today), the cathedral is topped by five neo-Byzantine domes. Inside, one notes the absence of frescoes. But the decoration is rich with a huge Russian iconostasis in gilded wood of 118^m2. This one was financed by the Romanovs and designed in the coastal monastery of the Trinity-St. Sergius, near Saint Petersburg. The icons on it were made in 1869 at the Trinity-Serge Monastery, a famous monastery near Moscow where Andrei Rublev worked four centuries earlier.