About the St. Mark’s Church
The Cathedral of Saint Mark and simply the St. Mark’s Church is the second largest Orthodox Church not only in Serbia but also in the Balkans. The first one is the St. Sava Temple. It was built in the tradition of medieval spiritual constructions in Serbian-Byzantine style, and because of its monumentality it looks magnificent and powerful. It is 62m long, 45m wide and 60m high. The choir gallery receives over 150 singers, while the whole church can accommodate over 2,000 worshipers.
The imposing dimensions and specific architecture heavily influence the acoustics, making it even more challenging for installing the audio system. Also, during the A/V design it was necessary to ensure easy handling of the system, since it would be managed by clerics, and not technical people.
Implemented solution
Thanks to its extensive experience and collaboration with professors of the Department for Audio technology at the Faculty for Electrical Engineering in Belgrade, AVL Projekt team achieved remarkable results. By using the latest generation of audio technology, by installing more equipment and doing smaller installations, we supplied a lot more performance of the whole system, and all in record time.
Digitally controlled Line Array speaker systems and their unique frequency coverage provided us with the perfect sound directivity control, allowing no Hot-spots with much higher frequencies, or dead spots with too little. This ensured that each visitor in every part of the church (in front of the iconostasis), feels like it is in the first row and that a cleric speaks or sings directly to him (STI> 0.5).
Voice and singing controls are enabled by using condenser microphones with high directivity and by using UHF wireless microphone system with appropriate receivers. For the purpose of the choir and the synchronization with clergy, overhead microphones were installed, as well as an active monitor speaker system on the gallery.
The system for external use consists of the systems that are resistant to harsh weather conditions and do not violate the aesthetics and provide sound coverage of up to 50m in front of the church.
The control and management of the audio system is entrusted to the processor which ensures the autonomy of the entire system, in addition to the audio signal processing, simplifies the use of it and eliminates the need for engaging external technical support. Power is derived from digital amplifiers which provide additional tuning and adjustment of the speaker systems. All central equipment is placed in a wooden rack cabinet.
Following the examples of the most modern buildings
With God's help and blessings of the Serbian Patriarch g. Irinej, Studio Berar Projekt implemented the audio system solution in the Saint Mark’s Church in Belgrade which can boast the world’s largest houses of worship, the Church of Christ the Savior in Moscow, Cathedral of Notre-Dame-du-Cap Basilica and many others.