First Serbian Orthodox parishes in Germany, those in
Hamburg and in
Hanover, were established in the years after the
World War II. Labor migration has brought tens of thousands of ethnic
Serbs to Germany in the 1960s. To meet their religious needs, the Eparchy of Western Europe was established in 1969. Initially, it covered all states west of the
Iron Curtain and, until 1973, also included
Australia. The Serbian community in Germany was particularly large, leading to the founding of numerous additional church communities as well as the Monastery of the Dormition of the Theotokos in Hildesheim, Lower Saxony, which served as the episcopal seat from 1979. In 1990, the Eparchy of Western Europe was divided and two new eparchies were established: the
Eparchy of Britain and Scandinavia (based in
Stockholm, Sweden) and the Eparchy of Central Europe (based in Hildesheim-Himmelsthür, Germany) which encompassed the remaining Western European countries. In 1991, the protosingelos and former professor at the seminary of
Sremski Karlovci, Konstantin (Đokić), was elected and ordained as the first bishop of the eparchy. Over time, the eparchy underwent several territorial changes. In 1994, jurisdiction over Italy was transferred to the
Metropolitanate of Zagreb and Ljubljana; jurisdiction over France, the
Benelux countries, and Spain were assigned to the newly founded
Eparchy of Western Europe based in
Paris. In 2011, jurisdiction over Austria and Switzerland were transferred to the separate
Eparchy of Austria and Switzerland. In 2012, then-Bishop Konstantin Đokić was suspended as Bishop of the Eparchy and Serbian Patriarch
Irinej assumed temporary administrative leadership of the eparchy until 2014 when Archimandrite Sergije Karanović was elected as new Bishop of Central Europe. In 2015, the diocese was officially renamed the Serbian Orthodox Eparchy of Frankfurt and all of Germany. From 2017 until Bishop
Grigorije Durić took office,
Andrej Ćilerdžić, Bishop of the Eparchy of Austria and Switzerland, headed the eparchy as administrator. In 2018, the previous bishop of the Eparchy of Zachlumia, Herzegovina, and the Littoral was appointed as the new bishop of Frankfurt and all of Germany. By a synodal decision in November 2018, the diocese was renamed the Eparchy of Düsseldorf and Germany. In 2019, the eparchy celebrated its 50th anniversary. ==Structure==