ZARA (ZADAR), ARCHDIOCESE OF. - A city and archdiocese of northern Dalmatia in Croatia (Yugoslavia). It covers 2,989 sq. km., with a population of 130,480, of whom 125,480 are Catholics distributed across 100 parishes served by 70 diocesan priests and 25 religious (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 462). The patrons of the diocese are St. Anastasia the Martyr and St. Simeon the Prophet; the patron of the city is St. Grisogono.
The Illyrian and Greek, Byzantine, and Latin city of Iader or Iadera (Italian: Zara; Croatian: Zadar) is mentioned as early as 384 BC. Built on a rectangular peninsula (later severed from the mainland by a channel that was later bridged), it faces the Zara Channel, the "garden of the Adriatic." After the fall of Salona (c. AD 614), it became the capital of Dalmatia and remained so until 1918. At the end of the 5th century, Zara came under Gothic rule and later, around AD 540, under Byzantine rule; in the 8th century, it became the capital of the Byzantine Theme of Dalmatia and the seat of the imperial strategos. During the Byzantine-Frankish conflicts, Zara sought to preserve its autonomy. The Doge of Venice and the bishop of Zara, Donato, traveled to Constantinople as intermediaries for peace between Charlemagne and Emperor Nicephorus. Shortly afterward, Donato, along with the imperial strategos Paul, was sent to Charlemagne at Thionville. Through Bishop Donato, Zara received from Emperor Nicephorus the relics of St. Anastasia the Martyr. The Peace of Aachen (812) recognized Zara as belonging to Byzantium.
In the 10th century, Zara fell under the Croatian rulers of Dalmatia, and in 1000 it submitted to Venice, though by 1204 it had reasserted its autonomy. Subsequently, it changed hands repeatedly until, in 1105 (not 1107), it was taken by the Hungarian-Croatian kingdom under Coloman. During the Fifth Crusade, Zara was captured in 1202 by the Crusaders on behalf of Venice, which incurred the interdict of Pope Innocent III for this act. After prolonged disputes between Venice and the Hungarian-Croatian rulers, the Peace of Zara (1358), concluded between Louis the Great of Hungary and Venice, saw the latter renounce the city and all of Dalmatia in favor of the former; however, in 1409, Zara returned once more to Venetian rule, remaining under Venice until 12 May 1797. During the wars with the Turks (16th–17th centuries), Zara was completely cut off from its hinterland, and Venice sought to hold it despite all difficulties due to its great strategic and commercial importance. From 1797 to 1918, Zara was under Austrian rule, except for the brief period of French domination from 1805 to 1813. From 1815 to 1918, the regional Dalmatian government and, from 1848, the Dalmatian Diet had their seat there. The Treaty of Rapallo (12 November 1920) assigned Zara to Italy, while the Treaty of Paris (10 November 1947) assigned it to Yugoslavia.
From the relatively democratic system under Byzantium and the Croatian kings, Zara, in the 12th–13th centuries under Venetian influence, transitioned to an aristocratic system in which the count, regularly appointed by Venice, wielded supreme authority. Meanwhile, the bourgeoisie developed, with its university serving as a counterbalance to the "community" of nobles.
Zara was likely a diocese already in the 4th century. The acts of the First Council of Salona (530) mention a Bishop Andrew of Zara, but only from the mid-8th century onward do we have reliable information about the diocese, which was then a suffragan of the metropolis of Salona and later of Split. On 17 October 1154, Pope Anastasius IV, in appointing Bishop Lampridius, elevated the diocese of Zara to a metropolitan see with the suffragan sees of Veglia (Krk), Ossero (Osor), Arbe (Rab), and Lesina (Hvar)—though the latter returned to Split in 1181. This elevation occurred through Venetian influence, as Zara and the aforementioned island dioceses were politically under Venetian control. Venice sought to make this territory ecclesiastically independent from Split, which was then under Hungarian-Croatian rule. This pleased the people of Zara, but already the following year (1155), Zara and its suffragan sees were subjected by Pope Adrian IV to the Patriarch of Grado, a decision against which Zara vainly protested. It was only in 1644 that the Patriarch of Venice renounced all jurisdiction over Zara, though he retained the title of "Primate of Dalmatia." In 1177, during his journey from Anagni to Venice, Pope Alexander III stopped in Zara, and the *Liber Pontificalis* (II, p. 437) notes that the clergy and people greeted the pope with "immensis laudibus et canticis altisone resonantibus in eorum sclavica lingua" ("immense praises and loud songs in their Slavic tongue").
Within the territory of the present archdiocese of Zara once existed the diocese of Biograd (Zaravecchia), where in 1059 the ancient see of Scardona had been transferred. In 1125, Biograd was destroyed by the Venetians, and the see was moved to Scardona, while part of the diocese, particularly the islands, passed under Zara. The territory OÑA (v.) or Nin, established in the 9th century and a suffragan of the Patriarchate of Aquileia, also now belongs to the diocese of Zara. The bishop of Nona bore the title of "episcopus Chroatorum" or "regalis episcopus." The 10th-century Bishop Gregory of Nona is known for his association with the controversy over the Old Slavonic liturgical language and the dispute with the archbishop of Split over jurisdiction. The diocese was definitively suppressed and annexed to the archdiocese of Zara on 30 June 1828, when the bull *Locum beati Petri* established a new ecclesiastical division of Dalmatia, whereby the archbishop of Zara became the metropolitan of all Dalmatia, while the archdioceses of Split and Dubrovnik (Ragusa) became simple dioceses. After Zara’s annexation to Italy (1920), from 1922 the part of the diocese remaining under Yugoslavia was entrusted to the bishop of Šibenik as apostolic administrator. The metropolitan see was abolished on 22 August 1932. After the Second World War, the territory of the archdiocese was reunited. Today, it remains immediately subject to the Holy See.
Among the archbishops of Zara, Ottaviano Garzadori (1624–39) stands out for his role as apostolic visitor to Dalmatia in 1624–25. Archbishop Vincenzo Zmajević (1713–45) founded the *Seminarium Zmajoviljricum* in 1727, though it only opened in 1748 under his successor, Matteo Karaman; in 1828, the seminary became regional for all of Dalmatia. In a large part of the archdiocese, especially on the islands, the Old Slavonic language has been used in the liturgy since time immemorial.
Zara is rich in monuments, though its ancient walls have disappeared and traces of Greco-Roman monuments are rather scarce. The most famous architectural monument of Zara, as well as of all Dalmatia, is:
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ZARA, ARCHDIOCESE OF - *The Judgment of Solomon*. Detail of a pluteus (11th century) - Zara, Museum.
"immensis laudibus et canticis altisone resonantibus in eorum sclavica lingua."