Meeting of the Committee for construction of the memorial church in Mauthausen

With the blessing of His Grace Andrej, Bishop of Austria-Switzerland, a regular session of the Committee for construction of the memorial church of the Holy Serbian New Martyrs was held at the military cemetery in Mauthausen, after the evening service in the church of St. Basil of Ostrog the Miracle-worker in Linz, on Friday, October 16, 2020.

The meeting was attended by the competent Diocesan Bishop Andrej, archpriest-staurophore Dragan Micic, parish priest from Linz; secretary Mr. Zeljko Malesevic and in the online format Mr. Mladen Filipovic, Head of the Republika Srpska Representation in Vienna. The final phase of the works and the overall progress of the works on the memorial chapel, which had been realized to that moment, were discussed at the meeting. Construction plans have been rather slow due to the corona virus pandemic. Nevertheless, the work that could be performed in the workshop was evaluated. This primarily refers to the construction of iconostasis, assembling mosaics, as well as icon-painting and preparation of the Book of the Dead - the works that could be performed in a workshop.

The Raiffendorf-Mauthausen Military Cemetery (Konzentrationslager Mauthausen) is only a 20-minute drive from Linz. Between 7,000 and 8,000 Serbian soldiers, officers and civilians who were captured in the autumn of 1914 and taken from Serbia and the surrounding area rest in the cemetery by the Mauthausen prison camp near Linz (Upper Austria), through which about 40,000 Serbs, Italians, Russians and of other nationalities passed by 1918. One hundred years ago, one of the interned Serbian officers expressed  hope in his letter that a memorial chapel would be constructed on the site of the camp immediately after the war - to preserve memory of the terrible victims, Serbian detainees. Only with the support of the President of the Republic of Srpska, Mr. Milorad Dodik, since the summer of 2014, the realization of this project has started. The beginning of the project coincided with the appointment of His Grace Bishop Mr. Andrej as diocesan Bishop of Austria-Switzerland.

Source: Diocese of Austria-Switzerland