This paper analyses similarities and differences between early modern Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic burial customs in the region of Žumberak, Croatia. Because of devastating Ottoman incursions during the late 15th and early 16th...
moreThis paper analyses similarities and differences between
early modern Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic burial customs in the region of Žumberak, Croatia. Because
of devastating Ottoman incursions during the late 15th and
early 16th centuries, the House of Habsburg organised a defensive system in the southeastern part of the Holy Roman Empire. As part of that plan, Ferdinand I, Archduke
of Austria, ordered new settlement in Žumberak, which
was a strategically important site in a frontier region of the
Duchy of Carinthia. From 1530 onwards, the Archduke of
Austria allowed the immigration of a transhumant, mostly
Orthodox population from Bosnia and Herzegovina into
the Croatian Borderlands. In exchange for land, the new
population was obliged to military service.
In the 17th century, this population, known as “Uskoks”,
became a part of the Roman Catholic Church known
as “Greek Catholics”. According to the known written sources, the coexistence of the Greek Catholics and the indigenous Roman Catholic population was mostly peaceful
and mutually tolerant. Confirmation of these sources can
be found in the form of the joint, both Greek and Roman
Catholic, use of the parish cemetery of the Roman Catholic church of St. Nicholas. However, the comparison of this
cemetery with the chronologically younger Greek Catholic
cemetery in Budinjak and the exclusively Roman Catholic
cemetery in Lobor, allows a somewhat different view. The
main characteristic of early modern Roman Catholic cemeteries is very strong post-Trento council devotional practice mixed with traditional folk customs, but this is not the
case in the exclusively Greek Catholic cemeteries.
