SPLIT Dalmatia Croatia - Travel Guide Map

St. Euphemia and St. Arnir

 

A Benedictine monastery and the Church of St. Euphemia used to be just outside the northern walls in 1069. A church of the same name probably existed on the same spot in late-classical times. The monastery was dissolved during the French administration at the beginning of the 19th century. It was first converted into a military hospital, then damaged in a fire, and finally destroyed during the bombardment of Split in 1944. Besides the remains of the three-aisled early-Romanesque basilica, only the chapel of St. Arnir or Arnerius (built by Juraj Dalmatinac in 1444) has been preserved. Arnir was a local bishop who was stoned at the mountain Mosor in nearby Poljica in 1180, while collecting church taxes. The sarcophagus that can be seen is a copy; the original was moved into the parish church at Kaštel Lukšić in the 19th century. The monastery is encompassed by Renaissance walls above which a belfry was erected in the 18th century. Next to it today (though it was formerly in the Peristyle) stands the monumental bronze statue of Grgur Ninski by Ivan Meštrović (1929). Gregory, Bishop of Nin from the beginning of the 10th century, tried to introduce the Slavonic language into the liturgy in Croatia. 

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