CHURCHES AND SYNAGOGUE
Catholic Church and Franciscan Monastery
(Katolička crkva i Franjevački Samostan) (1866)
In Mostar, the Ottomans helped build a Catholic church in 1866. The church was destroyed during the 1992 was and the new, larger structure was erected in 2000 on the foundations of the previous building. The Complex is also proud of its library with its prestigious 50,000 ancient volumes of both the Western and Eastern worlds, and in fact it is the largest of all the libraries with such characteristics in the whole of Herzegovina. The building also holds an important art collection with works of Italian Masters of the 16th and 17th centuries, apart from works of more contemporary art.
Address and contacts: Franjevačka 14; tel. +387 (0)36 319 688. Opening times: 8:30 am - noon and from 3:30 pm - 6:30 pm (closed on Sundays).
Orthodox Church
(Stara Pravoslavna Crkva) (1834; 1863-1873)
The old Orthodox Church was built in 1834 in the area of Byelusine. An important example of sacred orthodox architecture, the Church guards a beautiful icon of the Virgin Mary, a wooden iconostasis with several Russian, Venetian and local icons dating back to between the 15th and 18th centuries. The new church, located in a hilly part of the city, was built between 1863 and 1873 according to the project of artist Spasoje Vulić. Due to a lack of understanding between Vulić and the people of Mostar, the work was finished by Andreja Damjanov who had just finished constructing the Orthodox church of Sarajevo.
The bombings of the last war destroyed almost all of this wonderful building and its artistic inheritance has been lost. Nowadays, governmental bodies are working hard to be able to proceed with its reconstruction.
Address: Bjelušine b.b. (Travel agencies can organize visits).
Synagogue (1889) and
Jewish Memorial Cemetery (1999)
During the Ottoman period, the Jewish community had already settled in Mostar, completing the multicultural nature of this city. The Synagogue, founded in 1889 in the suburb of Brankovac, was rebuilt in 1952 and donated to the Puppet Theatre. In 1999, in the city’s Jewish Cemetery, a memorial was erected to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
