Franciscan Friary in Fojnica: A Religious and Pastoral Centre
Site at a Glance
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Primary era
- Modern
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Austria-Hungary, Habsburg, Ottoman
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Monastery
On this page18 sections
History
The Franciscan friary in Fojnica is a Roman Catholic religious house in Bosnia and Herzegovina, dedicated to the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Christian Trinity. It belongs to the Franciscan Province of Bosna Srebrena, a regional unit of the order, and the Archdiocese of Vrhbosna, the Catholic jurisdiction centred in Sarajevo. Its precise beginnings are uncertain, but Franciscans had established a presence in Fojnica by the early fourteenth century.
Franciscan origins and Ottoman conquest
A small religious house probably existed in Fojnica by the early 1300s. The friars came from Dubrovnik and may have travelled with ore miners who had settled in the region from the tenth century. An earlier friary stood at Pazarišće in northern Fojnica, beside a church of St Mary built in the late fourteenth century. The friars later moved to the present site beneath Križ hill as they needed more accommodation for visitors and could no longer remain beside the through-road.
Franciscans were in Fojnica by 1463, when the Ottoman conquest of Bosnia brought the area under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. That year, friar Anđeo Zvizdović met Sultan Mehmed II at Milodraž. The sultan issued an Ahdname, a formal Ottoman charter, granting the Franciscans security and permission to remain in Bosnia. It also provided for refugees to return and set out basic rights and religious tolerance.
The friary’s origins at its present location remain unclear. Its foundations are dated to 1502, while its establishment may reach back to the middle of the fifteenth century. The earliest written mention of the present friary is from 1515, when at least its church was already standing; the friary was functioning by 1594.
Destruction, rebuilding, and pastoral work
During the persecution of Catholics from 1521 to 1524, the friary and church were destroyed in 1524. The Franciscans sought permission to rebuild in 1527 and were allowed to restore the church to its former dimensions. The replacement church was built in 1594–98, and the friary was restored in 1598. Ottoman authorities did not permit a larger church.
A fire destroyed the church and friary in 1664, including valuable possessions, especially the library and archive. The friars temporarily moved to Lučina, near Jajce, while they petitioned Ottoman officials for permission to rebuild and faced payments and high levies. The friary was reconstructed in 1666–68 and the church in 1669. Lučina had already served as a base for the Fojnica Franciscans working among Catholics in Jajce. Its residence had burned in 1620 and was rebuilt a few years later; after the Fojnica fire, it sheltered the friars for several years.
Franciscan ministry in Jajce grew after the Ottoman conquest of the town. The church of St Catherine had been demolished, the church of St Mary converted into a mosque, and the tower of St Luke turned into a minaret. Friaries at Jajce, Greben, and Jezero were also demolished, leaving Fojnica’s Franciscans to serve Catholics across a wider area.
The friary became a major pastoral centre, with a service area extending across central Bosnia and beyond. An account from 1647 names the parishes of Fojnica, Jajce, Kamengrad, Kotor, Vodičevo, Dragotina, Ljubija, Banja Luka, Motike, Dragočaj, and Kozarac. A report by friar Nikola Ogramić-Olovčić in 1673 adds Bihać and Dobretići and gives a total of 16,443 Catholics.
During the Great Turkish War of 1683–99, a conflict between the Ottoman Empire and a European coalition led by the Habsburgs, large numbers of Catholics emigrated. Many parishes and friaries disappeared, and the remaining Catholics were spread across a larger area. A 1743 report lists communities at Fojnica, Lašva, Jajce, Dobretići, Banja Luka, Ivanjska, Kotor, Majdan, Vodičevo, Bihać, Rama, Livno, Duvno, Skoplje, and Kupres, with 18,443 Catholics. Reported totals rose to 27,315 in 1762 and 36,240 in 1779.
Nineteenth-century expansion
The church and friary underwent further restoration in 1798 and 1830. In 1801, the church received the first organ in Bosnia, an instrument that did not survive. The friary’s jurisdiction still covered a broad area in 1856, with 60,588 Catholics across parishes that included Fojnica, Jajce, Banja Luka, Bihać, Livno, Rama, and Kupres. New friaries founded in the second half of the nineteenth century, including those at Gorica, Guča Gora, Petrićevac, and Rama, assumed responsibility for some parishes. Others passed to priests outside religious orders in 1883.
A house at Rupnovac, below the friary, was associated with early schooling in Bosnia and was the first school in Fojnica. Bishop Augustin Miletić wrote a primer, and teaching in the area was associated with Franciscan friar Mijo Gujić. With Austrian government support, a public school building was constructed in 1872.
Twentieth-century change and war
The friary continued to expand and change during the twentieth century. Communist authorities took over some rooms for other uses between 1949 and 1959, and the Yugoslav People’s Army occupied a new residential wing until 1959. A catechetical hall was added in 1984, and the residential section underwent major renovation from 1987 to 1990.
During the 1992–95 Bosnian War, the friary’s guardian, fra Nikica Miličević, and vicar, fra Leon Migić, were shot dead inside the building on 13 November 1993. Witnesses alleged that Croatian insignia motivated the killings, but the courts did not establish a motive. In 1994, Miralem Čengić received an 11-year sentence from the Supreme Military Court in Sarajevo; the following year, the Supreme Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina sentenced him to 15 years. Nedim Zerda, Samin Mušinbegović, and Vahid Begić each received six-month sentences. Alija Izetbegović issued three pardons to Čengić, and Ejup Ganić issued a fourth, after which Čengić was released.
Preservation and the friary community
The older friary section that housed the library and museum was demolished in 2000 after deteriorating, and a replacement was built on the site during the 2000s. The museum’s permanent exhibition was installed from 2009 onward, and the church organ was formally commissioned after restoration in 2012. The library and museum collection were designated a national monument in 2004 and removed from the list of endangered monuments in 2012. In 2011, the church, friary, and associated natural and architectural ensemble were designated National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina; a friary wing built in 2001 was excluded.
Franciscan School Sisters lived and worked at the Rupnovac house from 1970 to 1993, serving in the hospital, health centre, and friary. They left during the war. The friars preserved and repaired the building, and an agreement for the sisters’ return was signed in 2015. By 2016, three sisters were again living and working there.
Remains
The friary complex
The friary stands beneath Križ hill within a wider landscape that includes the church, the Rupnovac house and orchard, Lastve, part of Bare, the Karauša cemetery, and the locality of Podkrižem. Its buildings and surroundings include the church, residential and library-and-museum buildings, a catechetical hall, and associated orchards, slopes, and wooded areas.
The Church of the Holy Spirit
The present Church of the Holy Spirit was built in 1888 in Renaissance style. It measures about 31 by 14 metres and has a cross-shaped plan, with a single nave, the main space for the congregation, intersected by a transept, a projecting cross arm. The transept extends about 2.70 metres beyond the nave’s side walls.
A polygonal dome rises above the intersection of the nave and transept. It rests on a square base measuring 10.80 metres on each side and is supported by a tambour, the raised structure beneath a dome. The tambour is about five metres high and has eight evenly spaced openings that admit light to the centre of the church. Its inner diameter is 10.80 metres; the dome’s vertical radius is 5.40 metres, and its inner surface reaches 20.50 metres above the floor.
The substantial stone walls use two layers of masonry and vary in thickness from 66 to 96 centimetres. Stone set in lime mortar forms the dome. A brick bell tower stands at the northeastern corner, against the north wall, and is structurally joined to the church. The floor of its fourth level aligns with the church ceiling, and the bells hang at that level.
Sanctuary, decoration, and furnishings
The sanctuary and presbytery, the area around the altar reserved for clergy, extend from the west end of the nave. A wooden railing separates them from the congregation, and the presbytery stands about 40 centimetres above the church floor. Together with the semicircular apse, the projecting end of the church, these spaces frame the sanctuary and high altar.
Josip Oisner painted the interior between 1893 and 1895, decorating it with floral designs and medallions containing saints. A separate scheme for the ceiling and pulpit began in 1884 but collapsed before completion. It has been attributed to friar Miho Čuić, whose stated lifespan, about 1750–1809, predates the work, leaving the attribution and chronology unresolved.
The church has three altars made in Tyrol in 1894 by the F. Stuflesser workshop and a Way of the Cross acquired in Vienna. A seven-register organ made by Rieger of Silesia was installed in 1896. Two bells were acquired in Innsbruck in 1894. The three bells described for the church include a middle bell made by Albert Samassa-Labaca in 1894 and small and large bells cast in Maribor in 1927.
Earlier church
An earlier church built on the present site in 1594–98 measured about 31 by 10 metres. Its likely arrangement was a rectangular congregation space with a presbytery and main altar at one end.
Friary buildings
A friary building erected between 1863 and 1865 later housed the library and museum. The residential wing added in 1940 served as accommodation, while the older building held the collections. The catechetical hall dates to 1984. A replacement library-and-museum building was constructed on the older building’s site during the 2000s.
Rupnovac and the surrounding landscape
The Rupnovac house lies about 100 metres below the friary and is associated with an orchard. Stone retaining walls and a slope lie northeast below the friary. An orchard occupies the slope south of the church; an orchard and forest cover the western slope at Križ, while forest lies southeast of the church at Bare.
Karauša cemetery
The Karauša cemetery is south of the church. It contains a chapel dedicated to St Michael and a crypt.
Library, archive, and museum collections
Library and archive
The library holds about 12,500 volumes, including 13 incunabula, books printed before 1501, and 156 works in Bosnian Cyrillic, a historical regional form of the Cyrillic script. Its newer books date from 1850 onward; older books and documents predate that year. Most printed works are philosophical or theological writings from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries.
The archive preserves more than 3,000 documents from the Ottoman era, including 13 dating to 1481. Its holdings include a transcript of the Ahdname issued by Mehmed II and the Fojnica Armorial.
Fojnica Armorial
The Fojnica Armorial is a version of the early modern Illyrian armorials, heraldic compilations that include legendary or unverified elements. Its date is placed between 1635 and 1688, with estimates varying among researchers. It contains coats of arms associated with prominent medieval Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian families.
Museum and mining collections
The museum collection includes 160 paintings. Older works, dating from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, were mostly made in Italy or coastal Croatian towns. Twentieth-century works include paintings and drawings associated with academic painter Gabriel Jurkić, including oil paintings mainly on canvas or cardboard and illustrations for periodicals. The collection also holds 104 metal objects, seven sculptures, and nine textile objects.
The museum displays a rare coin collection and minerals gathered by Franciscan friar Paškal Vešara. Its mining displays include ores processed for gold, mining tools, and jewellery made by Fojnica goldsmiths. Together these objects relate to the extraction of gold and silver from the Bakovići mines.
