FRANJEVCI BOSNE SREBRENE U OSMANSKOJ MAĐARSKOJ I TRANSILVANIJI OD 16. do 18. STOLJEĆA
FRANCISCANS FROM BOSNA ARGENTINA IN OTTOMAN HUNGARY AND TRANSYLVANIA IN THE 16-18TH CENTURIES

Summary/Abstract: For the Bosnian Franciscan province, comprising more than three hundred friars, Turkish Hungary was of no more than secondary importance. However, for the Catholics in Ottoman Hungary, the presence and work of Bosnian Franciscans was of vital importance. In 1651-56 the bishop of Belgrade, the Bosnian Franciscan Matteo Benlich, (Matej Benlic) visited the parishes of Turkish Hungary, and without the friars living in the monasteries at Velika and Nasice, he found in total thirty-eight Bosnian Franciscans in the parishes in Hungary. (Usually there was just one friar in a parish, but in the larger parishes there were sometimes two.) The mission of the Bosnian Franciscans was successful, because it could fall back upon a large Croatian speaking population. The Bosnian missionaries were soon pushed out of Moldavia and Transylvania, provinces without Southern Slavs. In Bulgaria, however, they began an extremely successful mission that soon fell into the hands of Bulgarian friars who formed an independant separate province. In Bosnia, however, they never had any real rivals. In Turkish Hungary the Bosnian Franciscan mission was highly successful, owing to good relations of the Bosnian friars with the Turks and the increasing numbers of Croatian speaking Catholics. Of all the missionary initiatives supported by the Holy Congregation for the Propagation of Faith in Turkish Hungary, the conversion work of the Bosnian Franciscan missionaries was of by far the greatest effect. The mission in Turkish Hungary “employed” about only one-tenth of the friars of the province of Bosnia, but this external assistance was of vital significance for the Hungarian Catholic dioceses under Turkish rule.

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