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FRANCISCAN MONASTERIES BEFORE 1463
IN BOSNIA - HERZEGOVINA
Now we would like to provide an impressive list of Franciscan Monasteries in Bosnia - Herzegovina before 1463 i.e. monasteries that we know to have existed before the Turkish occupation of Bosnia in 1463.:
Central and western Bosnia:1. Bihac, |
Northern and north-eastern Bosnia:27. Srebrenica, Hum (today's Herzegovina):40. Mostar,41. Ljubuski, 42. Konjic. |
Just for comparison, immediately before the Serbian aggression that started in 1991/92 Bosnian Franciscans had altogether 25 monasteries (three of them outside of Bosnia - Herzegovina: two in Belgrade and one in the Kosovo region).
This list is for sure not complete, but it tells us already enough. It is clear that Catholic churches in Bosnia were much more numerous than Franciscan monasteries. According to the Turkish census of population in Bosnia from 1570 even the city of Foca on the river Drina had Catholic majority at that time. The ethnic and religious picture of Bosnia - Herzegovina has changed especially drastically in the 17th and 18th centuries in favor of Muslims and Orthodox Christians.
In 1658 a Franciscan Ivan from Foca (a small town in eastern Bosnia) sent a request to the Pope in the Vatican for permission to use Croatian language, "as was allowed to all priests in the province of Dalmatia" (...come pure concesta a tuti gli sacerdoti della provincia di Dalmazia), meaning of course the Croatian Glagolitic liturgy. See [Strgacic], p. 388.
Very important franciscan monastery of Plehan with the accompanying church have been completely destroyed in 1992., using two tons of explosive, during Greater Serbian aggression on Bosnia - Herzegovina (1991-1995), see [Baltic, p. 6 of dr. fra Andrija Zirdum's introduction].
A well known fact from the history of Bosnia (as well as recent) is that successes in the defense of the Croatian territories from Turkish onslaughts were followed by savage reprisals over the remaining Croatian Catholics in occupied areas (in today's Bosnia - Herzegovina and parts of Croatia). In this way many Catholic churches and monasteries disappeared and large ares in Bosnia had been emptied from the Croats. Especially infamous was gazi Husref - Beg, army leader of sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (16th century).
In this way the emptied areas had been populated by Muslim and Valachian settlers. Catholic churches were transformed into mosques like in Srebrenica, nearby Zvornik on the river of Drina, and in many other places.
Source: www.CroatianHistory.net
