Story
The story of Church of St. George in Topola
On top of Oplenac hill above Topola, this white marble church is the mausoleum of the Karađorđević dynasty, the royal house of Serbia and Yugoslavia. Karađorđe, leader of the First Serbian Uprising, settled here. King Peter I chose the spot for his church of Saint George after coming to the throne in 1903, and experts measured it so that the altar would face east.
The cornerstone was laid in 1907, construction began on 1 May 1910 to plans by the young architect Kosta J. Jovanović, and the facade was clad in brilliant white marble from nearby Venčac. When Austria-Hungary occupied Serbia in 1915, the church was looted: the copper was stripped from the dome, the bells taken. Peter I died in 1921 without seeing it finished; his son Alexander completed it, with bells from France and mosaics made in Berlin.
Six generations of the family rest here, 28 tombs in all, from Karađorđe's mother to King Peter II, whose remains were brought back in 2013.
This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗
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