During the Ottoman period the only orthodox church was the one in the old part of town. With the arrival of a larger group of orthodox immigrants from Montenegro and Serbia in the first half of the 19th century the church did not seem to be large enough to take all the worshipers. In 1862, Sultan Abdülaziz granted a request of the orthodox community to build a new church. The money was raised by the orthodox communities from Belgrade, Dubrovnik, Vienna, Trieste, the prince of Serbia and the Sultan himself. The church dedicated to the Holy Mother was designed by Andrija Damjanov. The construction took eleven years and was finally conducted in 1874. A large iconostas with gold-plating frame was a gift from an Imperial Russian dynasty Romanov.
Adriatic-Route for Thematic Tourism
