Franciscan church and monastery of St. Peter and Paul

Church of St. Peter and Paul is a Roman Catholic church with a monastery in Mostar. It is located along the Radobolja river, at the foot of Hum. The church is managed by Franciscans.

The Franciscan Church is one of the symbols of Mostar and with its imposing 107 meter high bell tower is an indispensable building in the panorama of the city. That's right, the Franciscan church in Mostar has a bell tower 107 meters high. The church is located right next to the Boulevard of the People's Revolution, not far from the city's main attraction - the Old Bridge in Mostar.

The Franciscan church is a meeting place of diversity and is certainly an indispensable part of the city's tourist offer. Mostar is richer for another tourist attraction, namely the Franciscan church together with the monastery of St. Peter and Paul.

The conditions for the construction of this church were created only with the weakening of Ottoman power, the loosening of restraint and the reforms of the Ottoman Empire. After the bishop's residence complex, the seat of the new Franciscan province and the seat of the Bishop of Mostar, was built in Vukodol in 1847, in 1866 the Franciscan church of St. Peter and Paul in the city itself. About thirty years later, a Franciscan monastery was built. The church was destroyed in the Serbian-Montenegrin shelling of Mostar in 1992. After the war, it was rebuilt. The church has the highest bell tower in Bosnia and Herzegovina (107 meters).

We must look for the beginnings of Franciscan life in Croatian regions in connection with the sending of Franciscans to the Overseas Province. All the more so because at that time some Dalmatian cities belonged to the Byzantine Empire, for which the Franciscan Overseas Province was established, and the sea routes to the East ran along the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. Indeed, shortly after the establishment of the Franciscan provinces, historical sources mention Franciscan monasteries in southern Croatian cities: Zadar, Trogir, Split, Dubrovnik. And the Croatian Franciscan Province was certainly founded before 1232, and maybe before 1226.

We do not know if the Franciscans from those cities, where they first established their residences, attended present-day Herzegovina in the Croatian regions. This could have happened first from Dubrovnik, which is close to Travunja and Humska zemlja, which later became part of Herzegovina, or via Split, because the Neretva region, also part of the future Herzegovina, until the year In 1324, it was under the Archdiocese of Split, so it is not excluded that some Franciscans from Split had the opportunity to visit parts of the Neretva region.

However, it is certain that the Franciscans came to the Herzegovina region mainly from Bosnia. About year 1322 Bosnian ban Stjepan II. Kotromanić (1312-1353) occupied Humska zemlja, Neretva krajina, Imotska krajina and Tropolje (i.e. Duvno, Livno and Glamoč), also called Završje. This event was very important for the conquered regions of the future Herzegovina, since they were then connected with Bosnia throughout history.

Bosnia was then the seat of heresy, which was much talked about at the time. It was a special form of Christianity, whose members were called Christians, and outside of Bosnia they were usually called Bogumils or Patareni. They were considered heretics and as such aroused the interest of other Christian communities.

This expansion of Bosnian power seriously worried the Archbishop of Split, Petar (1297-1324), who at that time exercised episcopal power as far as the Neretva. Since he had the power to appoint bishops in the vacant dioceses of his metropolis, he appointed the bishop of Makarska, because he knew that Makarska had a village of dioceses before the arrival of the Croats.

Around that time, the archbishop of Split appointed a bishop in Duvno, where the diocese used to be, a certain Madija, who was probably a Franciscan from Split.

Undoubtedly, the heresy of Bosnian Christians was known in the areas of Makarska and Duvanj dioceses before their unification with Bosnia, but certainly with the entry of those areas into the Bosnian banovina, the knowledge of this heresy increased and Bosnian Christians spread significantly in them. Precisely, in order to protect the people from those heretics, the Franciscans came to Bosnia and set up their permanent headquarters there. They were brought by the Franciscan general Gerard Ot (Gerardus Odonis, in Latin documents), who established the Bosnian Franciscan Vicarage on October 5, 1339.

Franjevačka 1, pp 153
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