In 1689, Serbian Patriarch Arsenije III Crnojević sided with Austrians, and moved from Peć to Belgrade in 1690, leading the Great Migration of the Serbs.

According to that, future primates of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the new Kingdom of Serbia of the Habsburg Monarchy will bare the title of archbishop and metropolitan.

The only exception from the Imperial decree was the case of later Serbian Patriarch Arsenije IV Jovanović Šakabenta (1725–1748) who brought his title directly from the historic see of Peć (1737).

[1] So, the new capital of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Habsburg Monarchy became Sremski Karlovci which was confirmed by the seal of Imperial approval in the charter of Emperor Charles VI issued in October the same year.

During the Austro-Turkish War (1716–1718), regions of Lower Syrmia, Banat, central Serbia with Belgrade, and Oltenia were liberated from Ottoman rule, and under the Treaty of Passarowitz (1718) became part of the Habsburg Monarchy.

Eparchies in newly liberated regions were not subjected to the Metropolitan of Karlovci, mainly because Habsburg authorities did not want to allow the creation of unified and centralized administrative structure of the Eastern Orthodox Church in the Monarchy.

Shortly after, two metropolitanates did merge, in 1726, and by the imperial decree of Charles VI, the administrative capital of Serbian Orthodox Church was moved from Sremski Karlovci to Belgrade in 1731.

[11] During the Austro-Turkish War (1737–1739), Serbian Patriarch Arsenije IV Jovanović Šakabenta (1725–1748) sided with the Habsburgs and in 1737 left Peć and came to Belgrade, taking over the administration of the Metropolitanate.

From that time, Metropolitanate of Karlovci continued functioning as the fully independent ecclesiastical center of Eastern Orthodoxy in the Habsburg Monarchy, with seven suffragan bishops (Bačka, Vršac, Temišvar, Arad, Buda, Pakrac and Upper Karlovac).

As early as in 1724 the Holy Synod of Russian Orthodox Church sent M. Suvorov to open a school in Sremski Karlovci, which graduates were thereof passed on to Kievan seminary, and the more gifted to the Academy in Kiev.

[5] By the end of the 18th century, the Metropolitanate of Karlovci included a large territory that stretched from the Adriatic Sea to Bukovina and from Danube and Sava to Upper Hungary.

Second fraction was oriented towards further reforms within the church administration, in order to allow more influence on decision making to lower clergy, laity and civil leaders.