Soon after their arrrival to the Balkans, the Serbian tribes were successively [[baptism|baptised]] by Christian [[missionary|missionaries]] and became Orthodox Christians. The [[consecration]] of St. [[Sava of Serbia|Sava]] as autocephalous archbishop of Serbia in 1219 strengthened various Serbian principalities even more in their ecclesiastical allegiance to [[Church of Constantinople|Constantinople]] and the Christian East. Later, as the medieval kingdom of Serbia grew in size and prestige and as Stefan Dusan, king of Serbia from 1331, assumed the imperial title of tsar (1346 to 1355), the archbishopric of Pec was correspondingly raised to the rank of [[patriarchate]]. The period before the arrival of the Turks was the time of the greatest flourishing of the Serbian church. After the final Turkish conquest of the most influental Serbian principality in 1459, the greater portion of Serbian lands became a Turkish pasalik (province). After the death of Patriarch [[Arsenios Arsenije II of Serbia|Arsenios II]] in 1463, a successor was not elected. The patriarchate was thus de facto abolished, and the Serbian church passed under the jurisdiction of the [[Ecumenical Patriarchate]]. The Serbian patriarchate was restored in 1557 by the Turkish sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. [[Macarios Makarije (Sokolovic) of Pec|MacariosMakarije]], brother of the famous Mehmed Pasha Sokolovic, was elected patriarch in Pec.

The restoration of the patriarchate was of great importance for the Serbs because it helped the spiritual unification of all Serbs in the Ottoman Empire. After consequent Serbian uprisals against the Turkish occupation in which the church had a leading role, the Turks abolished the patriarchate once again in 1766. The church returned once more to the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constintinople. This period of so-called "[[Phanariots]]" was a period of great spiritual decline because the Greek [[bishop]]s had very little understanding of their Serbian flock. This was also the period when a great number of Christians converted to [[Islam]] to avoid the severe taxes imposed by the Turks in retaliation for uprisings and continued resistance. Many Serbs and their [[hierarch]]s migrated to southern Hungary, where the church was autonomous. The seat of the archbishops was moved from Pec to Karlovci. The Serbian Orthodox Church finally regained its independence and became autocephalous again in 1879, the year after the recognition by the Allied powers of Serbia as an independent state. After World War I, all the Serbs were united under one ecclesiastical authority, and the patriarchate was reestablished in 1920 with election of Patriarch [[Demetrius Dimitrije (Pavlovic) of Serbia|DimitryDimitrje]], the patriarch's full title being ''Archbishop of Pec, Metropolitan of Belgrade and Karlovci, and Patriarch of the Serbs''.