6.5-MILLION-EURO SCANDAL: Government transferred money to Serbian Orthodox Church for mosaic in the Temple of Saint Sava, part of the funds suspected of being taken out of Serbia in cash!

The Government of Serbia approved approximately 6.5 million euros for the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) to create a new mosaic in the Temple of Saint Sava, while the weekly magazine Vreme reports today that there are suspicions that part of the money was taken out of Serbia in cash and handed over to partners in Moscow.

According to the contract signed on Vidovdan this year by Patriarch Porfirije and Serbian Prime Minister Đuro Macut, the Government approved 763,100,000 dinars for the SPC. The Church immediately received a payment of 234,800,000 dinars, while the remainder is supposed to be paid by the end of November 2026, Vreme reports.

The document obtained by the weekly magazine shows that the money is intended for the production of a new mosaic covering an area of 2,315.33 square meters.

“It is unclear which mosaic this concerns, since the interior decoration was completed in 2020. Two facts have raised public alarm: public funds were transferred to one of the accounts the SPC holds at Alta Bank, and, secondly, there are suspicions that the money was taken out of Serbia in cash and handed over to certain partners in Moscow,” Vreme writes.

The Temple of Saint Sava was completed and officially opened in 2020, when it was announced that the interior works had been finished with the installation of a monumental mosaic and the complete furnishing of the interior, the weekly magazine recalls.

Dejan Nakić is listed as the contractor. According to numerous sources within the SPC who spoke to Vreme, there have previously been reports of controversies surrounding his business dealings with the Church.

Vreme reports that Nakić was detained in 2025 over customs violations after transporting large amounts of money, women’s handbags and cigarettes, but there are no reports indicating whether proceedings were initiated against him.

Nakić holds the rank of subdeacon and has been a close associate of the SPC for many years, while his brother, Serbia’s ambassador to Slovakia, is the subject of an investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime over irregularities during the 2026 elections.

“The Serbian Orthodox Church entered into a contract with an entity called the Moscow International Fund for UNESCO Support, agreeing to pay them for the production of a mosaic that is supposed to be delivered to and installed in Belgrade by the end of 2027,” Vreme adds.

The weekly magazine believes that, if everything was done in accordance with the law and the Serbian state’s regulations governing the use of public funds for the construction of Orthodox places of worship, it would be useful for the details to be made public and for the Church to explain how it paid for the works.

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