Mostar-Duvno, Diocese of. — It has an area of 8,368 sq. km. and 165,000 faithful, who form the absolute majority compared with Muslims and Orthodox. In 1941 it comprised 8 deaneries, 51 parishes with 50 churches and 296 chapels, and counted 151 priests (13 diocesan and 138 Franciscans). The female religious congregations (Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent and Teaching Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis) have 131 sisters in 13 houses. At Široki Brijeg there is a classical lyceum and at Mostar a theological institute, both Franciscan.
In the 6th century the dioceses of Narona (Vid, near Metković), Sarsenterum (Arzano?) and Delminium (Tomislavgrad in Bosnia, a fortress on Mount Lib) still extended over the territory of the present-day Diocese of Mostar-Duvno. In 591 St. Gregory the Great wrote to the turbulent Bishop Malchus of Delminium, a place that was the centre of the valiant Illyrian tribe of the Dalmatians and where, according to tradition, the first Croatian king, Tomislav, was crowned in 925. Soon after, the diocese disappeared and reappeared after 1300 as a bulwark against the danger of the Bosnian heresy (Patarenes). After remaining vacant at the end of the 18th century, on 5 July 1881 it was united with the then newly erected Diocese of Mostar.
As early as the 9th century mention is made of the Diocese of Zahumlje (Chelmensis or Zachumlensis) with its see at Ston (Stagno); it included the territory of the Duchy of Hum (Chelm) or Zahumlje, whose ruler is called in Venetian chronicles “prince of the Croats.” When in 1448 the voivode Stephen Vukčić assumed the title of herceg (duke), the territory of ancient Hum began to be called Hercegovina. Owing to serious difficulties with Serbian rulers in the 13th century, the persecuted Diocese of Ston was in the 14th century replaced by the restored Dioceses of Makarska and Duvno. During the harsh Turkish domination, which lasted four centuries, this region boasts many martyrs. In 1735 the Apostolic Vicariate of Bosnae Othomanae was established, from which in 1846 the Vicariate of Herzegovina was detached. In 1881, when the ordinary hierarchy was restored in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the vicariate became the Diocese of Mostar-Duvno. From 8 July 1890 its bishops have also administered the Diocese of Trebinje.
Of all the Croatian dioceses, the Diocese of Mostar-Trebinje is perhaps the one most affected by the current communist regime in Yugoslavia. Not only have all Catholic works been destroyed: schools, kindergartens, Catholic Action, the press, printing houses, religious instruction; the losses among the clergy and the massacres of the population are sometimes horrendous. Of the diocesan clergy, 12 priests still work in the diocese with the greatest difficulty, 5 are in prison along with the diocesan bishop, Msgr. Petar Čule, sentenced to 12 years of hard labour, 6 have withdrawn to other dioceses, within or outside the country; 13 have been killed and tortured, in part even by the Serbian četnik forces of Draža Mihailović. The Franciscans fared even worse: out of 64 fathers still active in 1951, another 25 languish in prison, 27 have gone into exile and 75 have been killed. In the sole convent of Široki Brijeg, 28 Franciscans were massacred and in part burned alive.
Krunoslav Stjepan Draganović