With the blessing of Bishop Gerasim of Gornji Karlovac, painting of the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in Smiljan started. The Serbian archpriest Milutin Tesla, father of one of the greatest scientists Nikola Tesla, served in that church as a parish priest. Nikola Tesla himself was baptized in that church in 1856.
The fresco painting of the church is to be rendered by priest Milan Radusin, a graduated icon painter from the Diocese of Dalmatia.
In Smiljan, a wooden church and 17 Serbian houses were mentioned in 1697, and it is also on the list of Orthodox parishes in the Karlovac Generalate from 1700. A proper church was built on the foundations of an old church constructed of wood, and that construction was approved by Empress Maria Theresa in 1756. Bishop Danilo Jaksic consecrated the church in 1765. On the corner pilasters in the northwest and southwest there were records of the renovation of the church in 1876, during chaplaincy of Revd. Smiljan M. Lemajic. The bell tower of the church was on a pediment, which can be seen in the photographs of Dr. Radivoje Simonovic from 1913, and some time later a much larger square-shaped bell tower was built.
The church was demolished during the Second World War and rebuilt in 1986. It was built of stone and covered with a gabled roof covered with shingles. In the east, it ends with a slightly narrower altar space with a hexagonal apse on the outside, while in the west there is a bell tower on a pediment as it was originally. The dimensions of the church are 18 × 8 meters. During the last war 1991-1995, the church was partially damaged and looted. It was renovated in 2006. An iconostasis was made of oak with icons that are paintings of the sisterhood of the Mother of God the Three-Handed from Sibenik.
Source: Serbian Orthodox Church
