The seat of the Archbishop of Vrhbosna (Upper Bosnia), Cathedral of Jesus’ Sacred Heart, was built in a neo-gothic style in 1889. The tomb of Josip Štadler, Archbishop of Vrhbosna from the turn of the 20th century, is located in the Cathedral.

Sarajevo’s Cathedral of Jesus’ Sacred Heart was built in 1889. Originally, it was supposed to be designed by the famous Viennese architect, Heinrich Ferstel. However, his proposal, which envisioned a monumental Romanesque style structure, was dismissed as too costly.

After that, the Austro-Hungarian Minister of Finance and an Administrator of BiH, Benjamin Kallay, asked for assistance from Friedrich Schmidt, one of Europe’s greatest architects and a man who was responsible for the expansion of the Neo-Gothic revival throughout Central Europe. Schmidt, who was ill at the time, sent Josip Vancaš, one of his best students, to Sarajevo with the task of picking a location and creating a design for the future cathedral.

After he had chosen the Ottoman Army Camp as the spot, Vancaš made his first sketches for the cathedral. In order to jump-start his career, he set up a studio in Sarajevo in 1883 and began working on designs for the Sarajevo Cathedral. This famous Hungarian architect stayed in Sarajevo for another 38 years and left an indelible mark on the architectural landscape of not only this city, but on all of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Completing more than 200 projects throughout the country, Vancaš also studied Bosnian architecture and proceeded to incorporate its characteristic elements into his own buildings, thereby creating a unique “Bosanski slog” or “Bosnian style”.

On August 25, 1884, Ivan Baron Appel, the Head of State Administration, and Archbishop Josip Stadler marked the beginning of the construction of the Sarajevo Cathedral by breaking the ground with gold-plated shovels.

According to some authors, Vancaš took inspiration for the Sarajevo Cathedral from the Notre Dame of Dijon and Teyn Church in Prague. However, thanks to his peculiar talent, the
cathedral he built was authentic and fit in perfectly with Gazi Husrev Bey’s Hamam, which was located behind it.

The cathedral’s interior is richly decorated and the famous Italian-German fresco painter, Alexander Maximilian Seitz, was in charge of the fresco details. He visited Sarajevo to arrange for the job and, apparently, the city made quite an impression on him, for it was later noted that while Archbishop Stadler was visiting him in Rome in 1887, he found him lying ill in bed dressed in Bosnian attire along with a traditional cap (fez) on his head. Even though Seitz had intended for his son, Lodovico, to finish work on the Cathedral, in the end the fresco paintings were completed by his associate, Alberto de Rohden.

In addition to the stained glass windows, the altar and the archbishop’s tomb, the paintings which depict various priests from western and eastern churches add a special value to the cathedral’s interior.

 
Visiting the Cathedral for the Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve is a special event for many Sarajevans. While this tradition has been in existence for a long time, in years past, only some of Sarajevo’s Muslims, Jews and Orthodox Christians attended the Mass as invited guests and caught a glimpse of the festive atmosphere in the Cathedral on Christmas Eve.

After World War II, however, the custom of attending the Mass became a major Sarajevo tradition. You would be hard-pressed to find a Sarajevan who has not entered the Sarajevo Cathedral and felt the atmosphere of the Midnight Mass while looking at paintings that depict St. Francis of Assisi and St. Dominic, or the one of a Bosnian man and woman kneeling with a child in their arms, while the view of Sarajevo as seen from Vratnik stretches out behind them.