Investiture ZagrebMay 12th – 14th, 2017

Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem

Magistral Delegation for Croatia

Blessed Alojzije Stepinac, Knight of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, carrying the Cross on Via Dolorosa, Jerusalem, 23th July, 1937.

His Eminence Josip Cardinal Bozanić, Archbishop of Zagreb

Grand Prior of the Magistral Delegation for Croatia of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem

and

Claude Grbeša Knight of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem

Magistral Delegate for Croatia

have the honour to invite you to the

Investiture to be held in Zagreb

from May 12th to 14th, 2017

ProgramFriday, May 12th, 2017

06:00 pm Welcome reception in the seminary of the Croatian Greek Catholic Eparchy of Križevci in Zagreb’s Upper town

08:00 pm Vigil at Arms in the Academic Church of Saint Catherine

Saturday, May 13th, 2017

10:00 am Investiture Ceremony and Holy Mass in the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Zagreb Ceremony presided by H.E. Edwin Frederick Cardinal O’Brien, Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem

01:30 pm Banquet at the Journalist’s House

05:30 pm Visit of the Blessed Alojzije Stepinac Museum, Knight of the Holy Sepulchre

07:30 pm Reception at the Atrium of the Mimara Museum Opening of the exhibition „Historical links between Croatia, the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem and the Holy Land”

Sunday, May 14th, 201712:00 pm Thanksgiving Mass at the Franciscan Church of

Saint Francis of Assisi of Zagreb

Historical links between Croatia, the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem and the Holy Land

The recently founded Magistral Delegation of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem in Croatia is based on a long tradition of close ties of the Croatian nation with the Order and with the Holy Land.

The Canons Regular of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem also had possessions in Croatian lands. The Duke of Slavonia Andrija (later crowned as Hungarian-Croatian king Andrew II) brought them from Poland to Croatia. We will probably never know the real reasons that led him to donate seven villages, along the creek Glogovnica near Križevci in Northern Croatia, to the Polish Canons of the Holy Sepulchre. This happened between 1197 and 1202. We found the earliest reference to the church of Glogovnica and the Prepositure of St. Mary in the letter of Pope Gregory IX addressed to the Provost of Glogovnica in the year 1230 in which the Pope informed him about the nomination of John from Moravče as Canon. This confirmed the importance of the Provost of Glogovnica. The Canons Regular of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem were no longer mentioned in Croatia from the end of XVth, more precisely the beginning of the XVIth century. Five Romanesque stone reliefs, which are among the most significant examples of Romanesque sculp-ture in continental Croatia, are the mute witnesses of their presence in Glogovnica. Four of them show Canons Regular of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, and three have a two-barred cross relief carved on their chest.

The most famous Croatian Knight of the Holy Sepulchre is unquestionably the Blessed Alojzije Cardinal Stepinac (1898 - 1960), Archbishop of Zagreb, mar-tyr and the patron of the Magistral Delegation of the Order for Croatia. He was invested as Knight of the Holy Sepulchre exactly eighty years ago, on 15th July, 1937, during the Croatian national pilgrimage to the Holy Land, which he led as Archbishop-Coadjutor of Zagreb with the right of succession and as the repre-sentative of the whole Croatian Episcopate. The main purpose of the pilgrimage was the consecration of the altar of the then Blessed Nicholas Tavelić, a Croatian Franciscan missionary. He was portrayed in the Austrian Hospice of the Holy Family in 1908, in the so-called Austro-Hungarian Saints’ Apse as the representa-tive of the Croatian nation. Fr. Nicholas Tavelić was the first Franciscan who died a martyr’s death in the Holy Land. He, along with three friars from France and Italy, preached the Gospel in Jerusalem with heroic zeal. For this reason, they were tortured and executed near the Jaffa Gate on 14th November, 1391, and their dis-membered bodies were completely burned. Pope Paul VI canonized them on 21th

June, 1970, creating Tavelić the first Croatian saint. He and his companions are the patron saints of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land. The Croatian Jerusalem altar, made by Croatian sculptor Ivo Kerdić, was in the former Czech Jerusalem Slavic church of the Saints Cyril and Methodius on the Mount of Olives, today the Apostolic Delegation seat.

The entire Croatian nation participated in this spiritually historic project, giv-ing it substantial financial support. This was the first votive gift of Croatian Catho-lics to the Holy Land.

The Latin Jerusalem Patriarch of the time Mons. Luigi Barlassina (1920 - 1947), who also acted as the rector and administrator of the Order, personally awarded the Blessed Stepinac with the Insignia of Knight Commander with Star (Grand Of-ficer) of the Holy Sepulchre. Today this high decoration is in the Blessed Alojzije Stepinac Museum in Zagreb. The Second World War and the godless communism thereafter dashed all hopes of founding a Magistral Delegation of the Order in Croatia. Archbishop Stepinac paid with his life for his faith in Jesus Christ and his fidelity to the Holy See since he refused any separation of Croatian Catho-lic Church from the Holy See and the establishment of the so-called „national church”. Saint John Paul II beatified him on 3rd October, 1998 at the Croatian Na-tional Shrine of the Mother of God of Bistrica, the Queen of the Croats, and it is expected that he will soon be canonised.

Three Croatian brothers from Bosnia – Paul, Anthony and James, were also Knights of the Holy Sepulchre. On 2nd May, 1681, they bought the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives, where Jesus prayed the night before his Cru-cifixion, from the Muslims and donated it to the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land. In the presence of the Archbishop of Sarajevo Vinko Cardinal Puljić and Fr. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, then Custodian of the Holy Land, and now the current Apostolic Administrator of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, a memorial plaque was unveiled on 29th March, 2014, bearing witness to this deed.

Several people from Dubrovnik, among them a number of consuls of the Ra-gusan Republic on Cyprus, were invested as knights in the 18th century. The ben-efactor Ignacije Amerling (1830-1913) became Knight of the Order in 1900, thus continuing the tradition of the knights from Dubrovnik. Amerling financially sup-ported expansion and renovation of the Franciscan Monastery of the Friars Minor in Dubrovnik and distinguished himself through many philanthropic deeds. Vlaho Bukovac, the most prominent Croatian painter at the turn of the 19th and 20th cen-turies, portrayed him in his Knight of the Holy Sepulchre uniform.

The oldest and the most renowned Marian shrine in Western Croatia – Trsat – is also known as the „Croatian Nazareth”. Namely, according to a pious tradition, on 10th May, 1291, the angels miraculously carried over to Trsat the Holy House of Nazareth, in which the Annunciation of the Lord and the Incarnation of the Son of God occurred. The Holy House mysteriously disappeared from Trsat on 10th December, 1294 and appeared on the other side of the Adriatic Sea not far from Re-canati in the neighbourhood of Ancona on the property of a certain woman called Lauretta. Thereafter the small town Loreto emerged around the Holy House. In 1367, Blessed Pope Urban V presented the Byzantine icon of the Virgin Mary with Child, attributed to St. Lucas and held to possess a miraculous quality, to Croatian believers who wept for the loss of the Holy House of Nazareth.

Since that time, the icon has been kept above the high altar in the Trsat shrine. Even up to the present day, the picture has been held in veneration as the Mother of Mercy or Mother of God of Trsat. In 1419, Pope Martin V gave permission to the counts Frankopan to build a shrine. They had a chapel built in Trsat with the same dimensions as the Holy House. The chapel was expanded into a church in 1431, and then in 1453, the monastery was built in which, to the present day, Fran-ciscans reside as the guardians of the Shrine.

Given that the eyes of the public throughout the world are now directed at the newly renovated Holy Sepulchre in the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, it is worth-while mentioning Fr. Boniface Drakolica (Bonifacius de Ragusa, 1500 - 1581), a Croatian Franciscan from the island of Lopud next to Dubrovnik and the Custos of the Holy Land. He was in fact the first person, after the Crusader renovation of the Basilica (1140 - 1149), who opened the Holy Sepulchre on 28th August, 1555. He had obtained permission for this beforehand from Sultan Suleiman the Mag-nificent, Pope Paul IV and the Emperor Charles V. Fr. Boniface was Custos of the Holy Land between 1551 and 1560, and thereafter from 1563 to 1565. He had Christ’s tomb covered with a marble slab, and had renovated the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, called the Aedicule. He also renovated the Rotunda of the Holy Sepulchre Basilica. After becoming Bishop of Ston in 1564, Fr. Boniface wrote and printed in Venice in the year 1573 a book Liber de perenni cultu Terrae Sanctae et de fructuosa eius peregrinatione (Book on the continuous worship in the Holy Land and the fruits of pilgrimages). This is one of the most important works re-garding the history of Christian presence in the Holy Land.

Aside from Fr. Boniface from Dubrovnik, several other Croatian Francis-cans lived in the Custody and contributed to its life and work, as well as to the Holy places, celebrating the Lord. Particularly distinguished among them was Fr. Jeronim Mihaić (1873 - 1960), who with his wisdom, simplicity and kindness fos-tered many friendships among the Bedouins, including those with the Emir of Jordan, later King Abdullah. Owing to his merit, the Custody gained possession of several valuable places, among which are Mount Nebo on the east side of Jor-dan, an area at the site of the Baptism of Jesus (1932), along the Jordan river, as well as the ruins in the immediate vicinity of the Last Supper Room (Cenacle), on Mount Sion in Jerusalem (1936). The Franciscans lost possession of the Last Sup-per Room, together with their monastery in the year 1551. At these places chapels, churches and Franciscan monasteries were built. It is also worth mentioning Fr. Jeronim Golubović (1867 - 1941), a Croatian Franciscan from Dubrovnik, member of the Custody and one of the best experts in the history of Franciscan presence and activities in the Holy Land. Among the numerous scientific papers he pub-lished, the published in 1921, in Italian language under the title „La questione de’ Luoghi Santi nel periodo degli anni 1620 – 1638” (The question of the Holy places in the 1620 - 1638 period) particularly stands out.

Romanesque relief of a Canon of the Holy Sepulchre in the sitting position (around 1200 A.D.)Glogovnica near Križevci in Northern Croatia

Saint Nicholas Tavelić, Croatian Franciscan missionary, martyr and patron saint of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land Author unknown, probably 16th century The St. Francis of Assisi Monastery (Croatian National Shrine of St. Nicholas Tavelić) in Šibenik

Commemorative plaque in memory of the three Croatian knights of the Holy Sepulchre

from Bosnia unveiled in the Garden of Gethsemane on

29th March, 2014.

Ignacije Amerling, Knight of the Holy Sepulchre (1907)Vlaho Bukovac (1855 – 1922)Museum of Modern Art Dubrovnik

The altar dedicated to Blessed (now Saint) Nicholas Tavelić, made by the Croatian sculptor Ivo Kerdić and blessed in 1937 by Alojzije Stepinac, Archbishop-Coadjutor of ZagrebApostolic Delegation, JerusalemPhoto by Ljudevit Griesbach (1914–1945)

The Croatian Franciscan Boniface Drakolica, Custos of the Holy Land, was the first person, after the Crusader renovation of the Basilica (1140- 1149), who opened the Holy Sepulchre on 28th August, 1555. He had covered the Christ’s tomb with a marble slab, and had renovated the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre.

The Annunciation and the transportation of the Holy House from Nazareth to

Trsat (1714)Triumphal Arch, Franciscan

Church and Monastery of Our Lady of Trsat,

Christoforo Tasca (1667 – 1737)

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