On the 7th of October 2018, we celebrated our 50th Anniversary. The church hosted multiple events to commemorate this joyous occasion. Father Nenad also commissioned a documentary.
50th Anniversary documentary
This documentary tells the story of how the church came into existence, told by those who witnessed its consecration. Many parishioners in the film have sadly passed on; therefore, this documentary is a memorial to them and all of our loved ones who have reposed in the Lord. We have made this documentary freely available to all and kindly ask you make a donation to the church below.
Please donate
Our eternal thanks go to Father Nenad, to Gary Hawkey for producing the documentary, and to all those that gave their time to make it possible. Please make a donation to the church.
Anniversary service and celebration
We were honoured to welcome His Holiness Irinej, Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church to lead a service to commemorate 50 years since our consecration in 1968. The service also memorialised members of our congregation who are no longer with us and were part of the community at the time of our construction.
We welcomed HRH Crown Prince Alexander II Karađorđević of Serbia. Our distinguished guests included an entourage of bishops and priests from other parishes across the UK and abroad. This included:
- Bishop Porfirije, Metropolitan of Zagreb and Ljubljana;
- Bishop Dositej of the Diocese Of Great Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia;
- Archbishop Grigorios of Tiatera;
- Bishop Mark of the Diocese of Western Europe;
- Bishop Andrej of the Diocese of Austria and Switzerland; and
- Bishop Arsenije of Niš in Serbia.
The afternoon and evening celebrations took place at the Chateau Impney. This included a programme of:
- speeches from our distinguished guests;
- traditional Serbian folk dancing from the Birmingham and London youth groups;
- singing from our young ladies and our guests the Church Choral Society Branko from Niš in Serbia; and
- poems from our youth.
The evening concluded with a Serbian igranka, a communal gathering with music and traditional dancing.
The anniversary afternoon programme also showed for the very first time a documentary produced by our very own Father Nenad and Mr Gary Hawkey. The film tells the story of Lazarica, the origins, the people and the construction. It’s an emotional piece that features interviews with surviving members of the generation that built our church and those who were young children at the time. Here is the trailer.