The Franciscan Monastery in Bač

The Franciscan Monastery of Bač is a cultural good whose original sacral purpose has had the longest continuity in the territory of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. The 2,500-square-meter complex of usable space, completely covered with vaults, includes a church dedicated to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (12^th – 15^th century), a bell tower (14^th century) and monastery wings (18^th century). Archaeological remains, including Roman bricks, are scattered throughout the doorway and garden, and the remains of a Gothic church, i.e. its ossuary located on the west side, is particularly valuable.
The Franciscan Monastery of Bač belongs to the group of the most significant cultural goods in the Republic of Serbia (exceptional importance). The miraculous icon of the Theotokos (”Lady of Joy”) from 1684 and old and rare books were put under protection in 1948, while in 1951, the protection was extended to architecture. The diverse values of this sacral unit are increasingly being used to understand the values of a broader territory – UNESCO’s Bačko Podunavlje Biosphere Reserve and the Cultural landscape of Bač and its surroundings, which is on UNESCO’s tentative list of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage.
The site where the Franciscan Monastery complex of Bač was built was located in the immediate vicinity of the Mostonga River, a tributary of the Danube, and inland roads that converged here, connecting Europe and Asia. Benefiting from these conveniences, this part of ancient Bač had a special role in the formation of its preserved urban matrix.
The Franciscan Monastery complex of Bač is composed of a church with three spacious, one-storey wings leaning to the south, with a well in the middle of the square. The church, dedicated to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, has an elongated base, with a five-sided apse in the east, a shorter side nave in the north and the main entrance in the west. On the south side, a corridor connects the church with the monastic cells forming a unique whole – a cloister covered by a common roof.
The monastery complex in its present appearance was being formed over the span of more than eight centuries and is witness to both sufferings and persistent renovations. Construction began in the late 12^th and early 13^th century, when members of the Knights of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem built a small one-nave Romanesque church. This church had massive counterforts, high pediments and a much lower apse. In the Gothic rebuilding, in the period from 1241 (overthrow of the Mongols) to the 15^th century, the old monastery buildings and a massive bell tower with counterforts along the apse were built. The church was added to the west by the beginning of the 16^th century at the latest. From the fall of Bač under the Ottoman rule in 1526 until its liberation in 1686, the monastery was converted into a mosque, as evidenced by the preserved mihrab niche in the south wall. In 1688, the Franciscan Province of Bosna Srebrena took over the monastery. The Baroque restoration included both the church and the monastic cells, whose characteristic square – cloister was being formed from 1724 to 1770 in a slightly modified location. The last thorough restoration of the monastery was in the first half of the 19^th century, when a new altar was erected in the church. Since 1923, the monastery has become part of the Franciscan Province of Saints Cyril and Methodius based in Zagreb.
The Franciscan Monastery of Bač is characterized by a well-preserved and visible rich cultural stratification. Significant contribution to better understanding of the architecture and life of this complex has been made by the research that followed the discovery of the remains of a fresco showing Crucified Christ with the Virgin Mary, on the southern counterfort of the church, which was built into the wall of the bell tower (2011). On the counter stone of the counterfort, the testimonies of destructions and renovations were found, which are now visible owing to the presentation of the site of the fresco’s findings. The remains of a part of an older monastery were discovered in the part of the bell tower and the sacristy. Extensive research is yet to come.
                                                                                                                      (Based on the text by Dr Slavica Vujović, Project Manager of the project “Centuries of Bač”)