Our Parish:
In late 1947 and 1948, Serbian workers began to arrive in Britain from camps in Germany, bound for the factories, mines and farms. They lived in hostels, and services were held in priests’ houses, Anglican churches and hostel chapels. When work grew more plentiful, many settled in the great industrial cities, Birmingham among them. So the seed of the present parish was sown.
Fr Radovan Miljković, a former professor at the Karlovci Seminary, travelled tirelessly in search of Serbs still living in hostels. In 1954 a flat and a small chapel were set up in a house on Middleton Hall Road, enlarged and consecrated in 1959. In those early years most of the faithful were men, for their families were still prevented from leaving Yugoslavia.
When wives and children arrived, the chapel grew too small. The Cadbury family offered a small wood in Bournville at a generous price, and in 1965 the foundation stone was laid. Fr Milenko Zebić and his fellow exiles built the church with labour and savings alike, under the patronage of Prince Tomislav and Princess Margarita, later joined by Prince Aleksandar. When asked about the style and size of the church, Patriarch German is said to have replied that it should be “like a thimble”, so long as it was Serbian in style.
The church was consecrated on 23 June 1968 before several thousand worshippers and representatives of other churches. Built in the Moravian style to a design by Dr Dragomir Tadić, it holds marble from the quarries that furnished Studenica and Sopoćani, and two stones from the altar of Gračanica set into its walls. The frescoes are the work of Dušan Mihailović, the walnut iconostasis was carved by Momčilo Urošević, and a portion of the relics of the holy prince is kept within. Later the Hall of St Prince Lazar rose beside the church, with a chapel of St Eugenia, while its printing press produced the journals Glas and Lazarica. Today the parish is led by Archpriest-Stavrophor Nenad Popović.
