Mostar-Duvno, Diocese of

MOSTAR-DUVNO, DIOCESE of. — It has an area of 8,368 sq. km. and 165,000 faithful, who constitute an absolute majority in comparison with the Muslims and Orthodox. It comprises (1941) 8 deaneries, 51 parishes with 50 churches and 296 chapels, and has 151 priests (13 secular and 138 Franciscan). The female religious congregations (Sisters of Charity of S. Vincenzo and Sister Teachers of the Third Order of S. Francesco) have 131 sisters in 13 houses. At Siroki Brieg there is a classical secondary school, and at Mostar a theological institute, both Franciscan.

In the 6th century, the territory of the present-day diocese of M. still included the dioceses of Narona (Vid, near Metkovic), Sarsenterum (Aržano?) and Delminium (Tomislavgrad in Bosnia, a fortress on Mount Lib). In 591, St. Gregorio Magno wrote to the turbulent bishop Malchus of Delminium, a place that was the center of the valorous Illyrian people of the Dalmatians and where, according to tradition, the first Croatian king, Tomislav, was crowned in 925. Shortly thereafter the diocese disappeared, reappearing after 1300 as a bulwark against the danger of the Bosnian heresy (Patareni). Having remained vacant at the end of the 17th century, it was united on 5 July 1881 with the diocese of M., then newly erected.

As early as the 9th century, mention is made of the diocese of Zahumlje (Chelmensis or Zachulmensis), with its seat at Ston (Stagno); it comprised the territory of the Duchy of Hum (Chelm) or Zahumlje, whose ruler is called in the Venetian chronicles « prince of the Croats ». When, in 1448, the voivode Stefano Vukčić assumed the title of herceg (duke), the territory of ancient Hum began to be called Hercegovina. Because of serious difficulties with the Serbian rulers in the 13th century, the persecuted diocese of Ston was replaced in the 14th century by the restored dioceses of Makarska and Duvno. During the period of the harsh Turkish domination, which lasted four centuries, this region could boast numerous martyrs. In 1735 the apostolic vicariate Bomae Othomanae was established, from which the vicariate of Herzegovina was separated in

1846. In 1881, when the ordinary hierarchy was restored in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the vicariate became the diocese of M

Of all the Croatian dioceses, the one perhaps most severely afflicted by the present Communist regime in Yugoslavia is that of M.-Trebinje. Not only have all Catholic works been destroyed—schools, kindergartens, Catholic Action, the press, printing houses, religious instruction—but the losses among the clergy and the massacres of the population have at times been appalling. Of the secular clergy, 12 priests are still working in the diocese under the greatest difficulties; 5 are in prison together with the diocesan bishop, mons. Pietro Čule, sentenced to 12 years of forced labor; 6 have withdrawn to other dioceses, within or outside the country; 13 have been killed and tortured, in part also by the Serbian Chetni­k bands of Draža Mihajlović. The Franciscans suffered an even harsher fate: in contrast to the 64 fathers still active in 1951, another 25 languish in prison, 27 have gone into exile, and 75 have been killed. In the single friary of Siroki Brieg, 28 Franciscans were massacred and partly burned alive.

Krušal Šef. Draganović