NY Daily News – May 03, 2016
by Andy Mai, John Annese
A raging inferno tore through a historic Serbian church in Midtown on Sunday night, just hours after its congregation celebrated Orthodox Easter. The blaze, which started at 6:50 p.m., sent heavy flames through the circular stained glass window of the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava, on W. 25th St. near Broadway.
The blaze quickly grew to a four-alarm fire, its flames bursting through the roof as smoke-eaters blasted water through the window from outside.
“It’s very sad today. Easter is the holiest day of the year for Christians. Today is Orthodox Easter and today people worshiped here this morning,” said FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro.
When firefighters arrived just before 7 p.m., the flames had already reached the roof, Nigro said.
“When they arrived, it was an advanced fire already involving the entire interior of the church. The good news is no one has been injured. There’s no one reported missing,” he said. “The bad news is this church has been destroyed by fire.”
The church’s caretaker, Slobodoan Ljubenko, 69, ran inside to try to stop the blaze, but suffered minor smoke inhalation and needed to be rescued, FDNY officials.
“We smelled smoke, once we came outside the church was on fire,” said Alex Velic, 31, the caretaker’s stepson, who lives next door.
“Once the fire caught the wood there was flames coming out of the top of the church. That’s when the people were going crazy,” Velic said. “I’m in shock still, it’s terrifying, I don’t know what to say. It’s sad.”
Gigi Delarga, 25, who works at a nearby food stand, said the flames started small, and within moments, the blaze gushed out of the circular window.
“It was literally throwing fire in front of (pedestrians) across the street,” Delarga said. “At some point I thought it was going to collapse.”
The church, designed by architect Richard Upjohn, was originally built in the 1850s as the Trinity Chapel — an offshoot of the famed Trinity Church downtown. It was built in the English Gothic Revival style. “The Age of Innocence” scribe Edith Wharton was married in an 1885 ceremony in the chapel.
The Serbian Orthodox Church purchased and renamed the church in 1944, and in 1968 the city declared it a landmark, according to public records.
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