Grábóc, Serbian Church and Monastery

The importance of the Serbian church and monastery of Grábóc is far greater than that of an ordinary parish church of Tolna county. This complex had been the intellectual and religious centre of the Serbs of the Carpathian basin, a real ‘Hungarian Athos’.

The first orthodox church made of wood was constructed by the monks from the Serbian-Dalmatian Dragovity monastery in the 1580s. Later the pasha of Buda gave permission for the second one made of stone that was constructed in 1585. The Turks destroyed the monastery working with their permission in 1667. The present church was built between 1736 and 1741; its tower and its dome roof are from 1796. The access to the monastery church is through a stone-bridge, close to which we find an old well house. On the western termination of the church there is a tower, on the eastern one a semicircular sanctuary.

The central decorative element of the church is the lavishly ornamented cupola with lanterns that illuminates the interior space. The iconostas is from 1768, its panels were painted by Vaszilij Osztojity from Újvidék. The frescos decorating the inner walls were painted by Andrej Saltist, an Ukrainian painter and Franz Floria Hoffmann, a Viennese artist.

Next to the church there is the one-storey building of the monastery. Both the church and the monastery that had worked temporarily as a Home for elderly people were given back to the Serbian Orthodox Church. The Serbian churchyard in the hillside over the church where we can see some eighteenth-century crosses is also a protected monument.
More Information on Hungarian Monasteries: Hungarian Monastic Cultural Route