The church is located on the same site (the northeast corner of River Street and
Gerrard Street East) as the Gerrard Street
United Church which was built in 1880 and demolished in 1939 when the parish was merged with Saint Enoch United Church. The construction of the Saint Sava church and
church hall began on June 10, 1953, and the cornerstone was consecrated by Bishop
Dionisije Milivojević on August 22, 1953. The architect of the church and church hall was Petar "Pera" Popović, and the building contractor was Velimir "Velja" Relja. The
single-nave church was built in the
Romanesque style and adapted into a
Serbo-Byzantine Revival style. It has a small semicircular
altar-
apse in the east while in the west is the main entrance to the church with a small vestibule. A small round
dome also rises above the roof on the west side of the church. The church has three crosses. The church hall is attached directly to the north side of the church, through which one can also enter the church. The first service was held in the church hall on
Easter, April 25, 1954, and the foundation of the church was consecrated on September 5, 1954 by Bishop (later canonized as a saint)
Nikolaj Velimirović. The church was completed and consecrated on May 22, 1955, by Bishop Dionisije Milivojević.
Grand Duchess Olga (sister of Russian
Emperor Nicholas II) attended the celebration and banquet, donating an icon of Saint
Alexander Nevski made by her own hand. The
iconostasis of the church, the work of Simo Temovsky, was consecrated in 1956. In 2005, the church was registered as a heritage building by the
Ontario Heritage Trust as part of the Cabbagetown South Heritage Conservation District. The church has been visited by a
Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church on three occasions:
Patriarch Irinej visited the church in 2015 and 2016 while
Patriarch Porfirije visited in 2024 to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of its existence as a Toronto parish and community. The church hall houses the Milivoje Petković Memorial Library. ==See also==