While Belgrade belongs to the Byzantine spiritual and cultural circle, turbulent historical circumstances have shaped it into a truly multi-confessional city where members of dif-ferent religions today live together.
FROM NOAH’S SON TO CHRISTIANITY
It is believed that, according to the Book of Genesis, descendants of Noah’s son Japheth lived in the territory of today’s Belgrade. During the era of the New Testament, the students of Christian apostle Paul preached Christianity here, including famous St. Andronicus, who according to a legend was the first bishop of Sirmium, today Sremska Mitrovica. Although archaeologists found a number of Christian motifs from the 3rd century, the first written records of Christians were a century younger.
RUSSIAN CHURCH
In the Tašmajdan Park, there is a small and picturesque temple of the Holy Trinity – a podvorie (monastic hostelry) of the Russian Orthodox Church and the spiritual centre of the Russian diaspora, built in 1924.
It is assumed that mass baptizing of the Serbs took place in the 7th century and that this was the seat of the bishopric area, although there is no written evidence about this. The first written traces originate from 878 – in a letter from Pope John VIII, in which the Pope mentions the Belgrade bishopric area and its Slavic bishop.
In the early 11th century, when the Archbishopry of Ohrid wasstablished under the influence of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, Belgrade became its important bishopric seat.
The continuity of Christianity was not interrupted even during the centuries of the Turkish rule, which is also testified by Western travellers.
Belgrade today includes three dioceses of the Serbian Orthodox Church: the Archdiocese of Belgrade and Sremski Karlovci and part of the Srem and Šumadija dioceses. There are about 90 churches, chapels and monasteries in the territory of the city. Only three monasteries are located in the city: the Monastery of Presentation of Mary in the Senjak suburban area (from the 20th century), the Rakovica Monastery (from the 14th century) and the Monastery of St. Archangel Gabriel in the Zemun Park (from the 18th century). A special place on the map of the city is taken by the main Cathedral Church and the grandiose Orthodox house of worship – the temple of St. Sava in Vračar.
Belgrade is also the seat of church authorities – located across the central Cathedral Church. The build-ing also houses the central museum of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
ROMAN CATHOLIC DIECESE,MASSES IN CROATIAN, SERBIAN AND ENGLISH OR ORGAN IN THE CHURCH OF CHRIST THE KING
Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholic Christians shared the common his-tory until the great schism in 1054. The date of establishment and the name of the founders of the Belgrade Archbishopry are not known. The Roman Catholic Church believes that the archdiocese was established in the Roman Singidunum, and its history mentions as bishops the same persons that were mentioned as Orthodox bishops. According to the history of the Belgrade arch-bisophry, Roman and Byzantine missionaries were active amongst the Slavs during the 8th and 9th centuries.
The concordat that the plenipotentiaries of King Petar Karađorđević the First and Pope Pius the Tenth signed in 1914 envisages the establishment of the Belgrade Archbishopry.
In addition to the priest of the archbishopry, also active in Belgrade are the Franciscan monks of the Provincija Bosne Srebrene, Lazaristi of the Slovenian Province, the Jesuits of the Province of Croatia and Salesians of the Slovenia Province. There are also female monks: Milosrdnice, Usmiljenke, Franjevke, Jesus’ little sisters and a community of the sisters of Virgin Mary.
Masses are held in Croatian, Serbian and English because of members of the diplomatic corps that belong to the Roman Catholic Church.
THE ONLY BELGRADE MOSQUE
Islam arrived to Belgrade together with the Turkish rule, which lasted intermittently from 1521 until 1867. The history of Belgrade mosques starts immediately after the conquest of the Lower City of the Belgrade Fortress and the conversion of Metropolitan Seat in a Muslim place of worship – the Great Mosque. Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent went for the mandatory Friday prayer dzuma, the day after the conquest of Belgrade, on the 30th of August 1521.
According to the census conducted by the Serbian authorities in 1836, Belgrade had 16 mosques. Until 1878, that number fell to five. Today, the Serbian capital has only one remaining mosque – the Bayrakli Mosque. It is located on Gospodar Jevremova Street, at the Dorćol downtown area.
Although it was long believed that this mosque was the endowment of Sultan Suleiman II, historians now say that it is old Čokadži Hadži Alija mosque, from the second half of the 17th century.
The Bayrakli mosque is now the centre of life of Rijaset, the Islamic Community of Serbia and the Serbian Mešihat. Apart from Belgrade Muslims, members of the diplomatic corps of Islamic religion go there to pray.
SEPHARDI JEWS AND ASHKENAZI JEWS
Due to the customs where the Purim is reading a book about Esther in the synagogue on the first and second day of the holidays, which the religious regulations allow only to those who live in the fortress that existed at the time of the Jewish state, the local Jews believe that they have lived in area of Belgrade for ages. Their first mention in written documents is from the year 950. Historical sources say that at the time of Emperor Dušan and Prince Lazar they lived in Belgrade in substantial numbers and that they traded with their compatriots in Dubrovnik, Ancona and Venice.
The position of the Jewish community deteriorated during three Austrian rules in the city during the 17th and 18th century. Sephardi Jews lived on the Danube slope, Jalija and Dorćol , and between the two world wars they began opening shops in the commercial heart of the city – on Knez Mihailova Street. Dorćol is where the old synagogue, religious communities and schools are located (Maršala Birjuzova Street). Ashkenazi, Jews from Central and Eastern Europe, came later.
Out of nearly 11,000 Jews, only a few hundred survived the German occupation. Everything that charac-terised Belgrade’s Jewish community disappeared with them. Rabbi of the Jewish Ashkenazi Community Ignjat Šlang in his book from 1926 “The Jews in Belgrade”, said that the city had a dozen synagogues during the 16th and 17th centuries.
By Jelena Tasić
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