Cultural monument of Exceptional Importance

 

The log Church in Takovo is dedicated to Saint George. It was built in 1795, on the site of an older building dating from 1724. It is one of the oldest and most important buildings of this type of church architecture in Serbia, and it is directly related to the events of the uprising period.

After the downfall of the First Serbian Uprising, Milos Obrenovic surrendered to Sali Aga Sercesma in front of the log church in Takovo, and thus he formally acknowledged the Turkish rule. When starting the Second Serbian Uprising on Palm Sunday 1815, after the morning liturgy in the church, Milos proclaimed the beginning of a new struggle against the Turks. In this sanctuary insurgents received Holy Communion and swore loyalty to each other, then they headed for the centuries-old oak trees in the valley of the river Ljeskovica, where they waited for a much larger number of people ready to fight.

Architectural work of the masters from Osat, the Church of Saint George is a single-nave building with a semicircular apse.  On the foundation of hewn stone, the piles of oak boards were set, while the roof is steep, gabled, and covered with “klis” (tiles made of oak tree plates).

There is a well-preserved iconostasis inside, parts of which were donated by the master Jovan Obrenovic, Prince Milos`s brother, with the royal doors – work of Jeremija Mihajlovic (1808).

 

Gravestones in Takovo Church yard

 

According to the Chronicle of the priest Stanojlo Kovacevic, even before the construction of the wooden church there was a local cemetery here. In order to expand the churchyard, the Bishop of Zica, Nikanor made the decision to relocate the cemetery and to flatten the old graves in 1888. By the agreement with the local people, the former pastor Stanojlo bought a meadow next to the village road from Pavle Smiljanic and merged it with the port.

From that time on, the old tombstones were located behind the church, until the beginning of 2002, when the Board of Bishops decided to return the tombstones to their original location.