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The Development of Spiritual Life in Bosnia under the Influence of Turkish Rule

Duke University Press

Prologue: Spiritual Life in Bosnia Before the Turkish Conquest

Bosnia's General Cultural Level

In order to grasp the significance of the Turkish invasion and its attendant circumstances for Bosnia's spiritual life, both when it took place and later, we must necessarily reflect briefly on religious life and its development in the country at the time of its independence.

The nature and kind of culture that existed in Bosnia during independence—in short, its cultural level just prior to the invasion—is a question repeatedly taken up in both Serbo-Croatian and non-Serbo-Croatian scholarship. A German researcher, Moriz Hoernes, has reasoned on the basis of his archaeological investigations that one can hardly talk of any culture in Bosnia during the Middle Ages. For lack of other material, Hoernes draws his conclusions largely from Patarin tombstones and excavations. The rough, primitive aspect of their gravestone reliefs, the paucity of invention, and the absence of anything culturally distinctive in these chiseled stone figures all serve Hoernes as proof that Bosnia was culturally far behind its neighbors. From the monuments he concludes that "the Bosnian population was totally lacking in religious sense" and "completely barbaric." A number of grave site excavations that Hoernes carried out at various locations and that yielded neither weapons nor jewelry only strengthened his views.

Among the Serbo-Croatian archaeologists of that period there were a few, though not of the first rank, who tried to refute Hoernes's argument by pointing out that "graves alone and the inscriptions on them scarcely constitute sufficient evidence to conclude anything about Bosnia's culture during her independence." Others went still further, maintaining in diametric contrast to the position of Hoernes that these very tombstones are "living and irrefutable signs of the cultural development, power and well-being of the people who erected them."

Asbóth, in his well-known work on Bosnia, took the middle ground on this issue. In the reliefs of the Patarin gravestones he saw the impact of late Romanesque stonemasons and at the same time "a certain influence of Byzantine taste mediated by Greek rule and the Greek church." We can infer, Asbóth concluded, from these insufficient remains "a very characteristic national culture rooted in the national life and spirit and representing a truthful image of it, though having registered—like every culture—outside influence as it grew."

It is not the purpose of the present work to analyze and evaluate this question more precisely. The intermediate position, however, would appear to hew most closely to the historical truth. For although there can be no doubt that the oriental origins and strong exclusivity of the Patarin faith, like a mighty dam, impeded the penetration of Western civilizing currents, on the other hand it can safely be assumed also that Rome and Byzantium had their impact, as did the family relationships and political connections of the Bosnian kings and nobility with the Serbian and Hungarian courts and, finally, the uninterrupted contact with Ragusa [Dubrovnik]. None of these could have passed by without a trace. Nor, surely, could Bosnia's geographic location or the condition of its roads, if hardly helpful to north-south traffic, have actually blocked such influence.

Not only the kings but numerous Bosnian magnates as well maintained constant and lively intercourse with Ofen [Buda] and Ragusa. They were honored with the highest decorations, participated at convocations and tournaments. Presumably they had a certain degree of "chivalric education and refinement." The mighty of Bosnia kept houses in Ragusa. The one belonging to the voivode Sandalj Hranic, as we know, was furnished in accordance with his personal instructions, and this was done with such taste that the house was imitated by others in the city. At the beginning of the fifteenth century sonatores, ioculatores, buffones, and a lautarius are mentioned at the court of the king and in the houses of the nobility. The latter sent their actors to Ragusa for celebrations and the townsfolk in turn sent their musicians (pifferi and tubete). Silk, finely woven materials, marinated fish and the like were presented by the people of the town to members of the court and to individual nobles.

A feeling for the gifts of a refined civilization, in short, was not entirely absent among the ruling class. Such contacts could not fail to influence the nobility's taste and general culture.

Church Conditions in Bosnia

The Catholic Church

As early as the year 530 at the so-called First Council of Salona there was mention of a bishopric in Bosnia subordinate to the archbishop of Salona. In the eleventh century this Bosnian bishopric was incorporated into the newly created church province of Antivari-Dioclea. For a very brief period it came under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Ragusa, after which, in the year 1247, it was subordinated for good to the archbishopric of Kalocsa. Thus Bosnia fell into total dependence, ecclesiastically, on Hungary. From that moment on the Catholic church and the political supremacy of Hungary came to be regarded as identical in Bosnia.

In 1344, at the time of Stjepan Kotromanic, there were three bishoprics in Bosnia: the Bosnian one, one of Duvno, and one of Makarska. Although Stjepan Kotromanic himself was of the Orthodox faith, he encouraged the spread of Catholicism by the Franciscans, "guided by purely political motives." Also under Tvrtko I, who himself had converted from Orthodoxy to Catholicism, there existed religious tolerance for all three doctrines, at least for a time.

Immediately after the death of Stjepan Dabiša (in 1395), however, inseparably linked to dissension within the nobility and coinciding with the first Turkish incursions, evil days closed in upon the Catholic church in Bosnia. The Patarins increased their numbers both among the nobility and the people as a whole, as well as at court. And even though the kings were on the side of the Catholic church, they were so disposed only for political reasons ("fictus christianus" [feigned Christian]). Catholic churches were neglected and destroyed and the bishops of northern Bosnia, who had earlier moved their residence from Bosnia to Djakovo in Slavonia, lost authority entirely in districts south of the River Sava. Church organization almost completely fell apart. All through the fifteenth century the Franciscans remained as the only defenders of the Catholic faith in Bosnia.

Under the last two kings the church, despite all, rose to unheralded power and importance. Yet it was nothing more than the last gleam of splendor before sunset. General collapse was only accelerated by the hasty conversions of kings and nobles. The moral rupture and disunity of the Bosnian ruling classes and that of the Western powers from whom they desperately sought support were now exposed to full view.

King Stjepan Tomaš [1443–61] accepted the Catholic faith in 1444, a decision that delighted the pope, and an orientation toward the West might also have been anticipated in the light of further events: the king divorced his wife, a Patarin, and married the daughter of the Grand Voivode Stjepan Vukcic, who agreed to the conversion of that same daughter to Catholicism, although he himself was a Patarin. The example set by the king was soon followed by his nearest relatives and the most respected members of the Bosnian nobility. Among the first to take the Catholic faith was the king's brother, Radivoj. That was a sign of the times. It was this same Radivoj who, in the reign of Tvrtko II Tvrtkovic [1404–9; 1421–43], repeatedly led the Turks into Bosnia, plundering the country along with them.

Even though the high nobility easily adjusted its religious convictions to its own interests, the bulk of the Bosnian people remained loyal to their "Bosnian church" and the Patarins continued to play a major role in public life. For instance, upon a complaint by the Franciscans that he had failed to persecute the Patarins, the king convinced the pope that they "could hardly be dislodged without jeopardizing the kingdom." And when Stjepan Tomaš, succumbing to pressures from the pope and the Hungarian governor Hunyadi, later decreed that the Patarins should "either be baptized or emigrate," it was the beginning of the end. For this fateful decree resulted in the mass emigration of the Patarins into Hercegovina. There they came under the protection of the king's father-in-law, Stjepan Vukcic. And it was not long before they were all at each other's throats. In those endless battles King Stjepan Tomaš himself was slain in 1461. (According to a Croatian chronicle, he was killed by his own son, Stjepan Tomaševic, and his brother, Radivoj.)

Stjepan Tomaševic carried on his father's ill-starred policy with even greater commitment, persecuting Patarins at the same time as fighting Turks. In vain did the pope send the new king the crown as a sign of his favor; in vain did the king assume a title that had never before been bestowed on the kings of Bosnia. The much provoked Patarins and the conquest-hungry Turks were near at hand, the pope far away and his help trivial. Hungary was jealous, the Catholic world indifferent. So it came about that both sides in their bitter mutual struggle only hastened the inevitable.

What was most characteristic of the growth and function of Catholicism within the kingdom of Bosnia was that it was spread by a foreign tongue, led by foreigners, and dependent upon foreign political and military might.

Strong colonies of Saxons (Hungarian Germans) and Dalmatian Romans, as well as inhabitants of Ragusa who had settled in cities and near mines either as miners or merchants, formed the centers of Catholic church life; here too were established the earliest monasteries (Olovo, Kreševo, Fojnica). Thus we find that the first organizers and representatives of the Catholic clergy were without exception foreigners (Fra Geraldo Odonis, Fra Peregrinus de Saxonia, etc.). The language of the church remained, in spite of all difficulties, Latin. In the first place this enabled the church authorities to oversee the purity of the faith, as use of the vernacular would have readily invited contamination by the Patarin heresy and the Orthodox schism. Second, from the very start the Holy See was determined to nip in the bud any notion in Bosnia that religious services could possibly be conducted in a language other than Latin. Bosnia was to be safeguarded from the risk of an encounter between a Slavonic liturgy on the one hand and a Latin liturgy on the other—encounters such as had been occurring ever since the tenth century in the Croatian coastal regions.

In the year 1203 we find the papal nuncio Johannes de Casamaris writing to Pope Innocent III as follows: "Noveritia praeterea, quod in regno de Bosnia non est nisi unus episcopatus et episcopus mode mortuus est. Si posset fieri quod aliquis Latinus ibi poneretur, etc." [There is this news besides: in the kingdom of Bosnia there exists but one bishopric and the bishop has recently died. If it be possible, let someone who is Latin be appointed there.] Ban Stjepan Kotromanic, through the Republic of Venice, asked Pope Clement IV in 1347 to send Bosnia only missionaries thoroughly conversant with Slavic ("or capable of acquiring it soon"), so that they might communicate with the people directly and also be able to instruct converts "in Latin grammar and the faith of the Roman church." Two years before the collapse of the Bosnian kingdom, when with a cry of despair the last king, Stjepan Tomaševic, appealed to the pope for help, he found it expedient to say that he had an advantage over his father (who was, to be sure, Catholic but only "newly converted") because he himself "had learned Latin and had embraced Christianity out of conviction." This he emphasized.

When Pope Innocent III came to learn of a "great heresy" in Bosnia in 1199, he turned to the Hungarian king Emmerich, who was suzerain to the Bosnian ban, and requested that he "call the ban to account and forbid him to protect Patarins. Should the ban not obey, let the Hungarian king fall upon Bosnia with his troops in a surprise attack, deprive the Patarins of all their property and expel them, together with the ban." From that moment to the collapse of the kingdom Bosnia was the stage for incessant wars in which the Hungarian kings, by supporting and protecting Catholicism, at the same time made good their claims to sovereign rights in the country. The two roles are frequently confused and identified, one with the other.

It is a remarkable coincidence that only under Turkish rule could the Catholic church—severely hobbled though it was—develop spontaneously and sink deeper roots.

The Serbian Orthodox Church

The history of the Serbian Orthodox church is no doubt the darkest point in Bosnia's religious life. Klaic takes as given that there were already in the eleventh century members of this confession in Bosnia, particularly in the eastern part of the country. The only positive pieces of evidence we have are the fact that the Serbian king Stefan, son of Stefan Nemanja, had himself crowned in 1217 as "Stefan the Great, King and Ruler of all Serbian lands as well as of Dioclea [Zeta-Dioklitija], Dalmatia, Travunja [Travenia], and the diocese of Hum," and the fact that his brother, St. Sava, when putting the country's church affairs in order, installed the bishop of Hum with his seat in Ston in the year 1219. It is therefore quite likely that this bishop's sphere of influence extended to the utmost border of the Serbian state, that is, to the Narenta [the River Neretva]. But once the ban of Bosnia, Stjepan Kotromanic, resumed control over the Hum area in 1321, the Serbian Orthodox bishop had to withdraw from Ston. A second Serbian Orthodox bishopric was in Dabar "with the church of St. Nikola in Polimlje," between Priboj and Prijepolje, at the site where today the monastery of Banja is located. When Polimlje and Podrinje (the Lim and Drina region) were incorporated into Bosnia in 1376, this bishopric of Dabar became Bosnian.

Near Prijepolje on the River Lim, Stjepan Tvrtko I was crowned king of Bosnia and Serbia by the metropolitan of Mileševo in 1377. The establishment of this bishopric is shrouded in darkness.

The Serbian Orthodox church, incessantly at odds with the Catholic church and feuding with the Patarins, could not develop during the period of national independence.

The Patarin Church

The "Bosnian church," as the Patarins preferred to call themselves, was of the three reigning confessions the one with the greatest influence on and significance for the spiritual and political life of Bosnia during its period of national independence.

The Patarins originated in Bulgaria. Toward the end of the tenth century they spread to Serbia but could not settle down, owing to the power of the Orthodox Nemanjic family. They then migrated into Bosnia. There, despite all the opposition to them from without and turmoil within, the Patarin movement struck deep roots, maintained its ground and flourished, and for a long time to come put its mark on the land and the people.

Since the Catholic missionaries were especially zealous in their destruction of Patarin writings, and since the Turkish invasion and the ensuing long drawn- out wars obliterated all traces of culture that were not of Slavic origin, the elements of Patarin belief have only been possible to reconstruct on the basis of its opponents' written refutations. According to these, Patarin doctrine may be described as follows:

They believe above all else that there are two Gods and that the greater created everything spiritual and invisible and the lesser, meaning Lucifer, everything material and visible. They deny the human nature of Christ and say that Christ had an unreal and ethereal body. They say that Holy Mary was an angel and not a human being. They also say that Christ did not really suffer and die, neither did he truly arise from the dead, nor ascend to heaven in the flesh.

Except for the Psalms they reject the Old Testament. All the fathers of the Old Testament, the Patriarchs and the Prophets, are considered damned, as is everyone who existed before Christ. They also condemn John the Baptist, saying he is cursed. And the Law of Moses was given by the devil, the devil having revealed himself to Moses in the cloud of fire.

According to them, the Roman church is an abode of idols, and the followers of this church worship idols.

They are the Church of Christ and the descendents of the Apostles. Among them they had one who stated he was the vicar of Christ and St. Peter's successor.

They reject baptism with water and say that no purification from sins is achieved by it. They also say that children cannot be blessed before reaching maturity.

They also deny the resurrection of the body, saying we shall not rise bodily from the dead.

They reject the sacrament of the body of Christ (Holy Communion), as well as confirmation and extreme unction. They also reject the sacrament of matrimony and say that in marriage no one can be saved. In addition they say that the tree of life is a woman, from which Adam ate while recognizing it as such, and for this reason he was expelled from paradise. They also condemn the sacrament of penance, saying that every person who sins must be baptised again. And all sins, they say, are mortal sins and cannot be expiated. They teach that purgatory does not exist. Lucifer went to heaven and stirred up God's angels so that they came down to the earth, and Lucifer enclosed them in human bodies. Likewise they say that people's souls are demons which were cast out from heaven and which, when they have atoned for their sins in one or more bodies, return to heaven.

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Excerpted from The Development of Spiritual Life in Bosnia under the Influence of Turkish Rule by Ivo Andric Zelimir B. Juricic, John F. Loud. Copyright © 1990 Duke University Press. Excerpted by permission of Duke University Press.
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