Franciscan Monastery and Church – Bač (Bács)
The Franciscan monastery of Bač is one of the oldest church complexes in Bačka still in use: the medieval sanctuary and tower of the church dedicated to the Assumption of Mary and its Baroque friary preserve centuries of history. It is listed among Serbia's cultural monuments of exceptional importance.
In the Middle Ages Bač was an important ecclesiastical centre: for a time the archbishops of Kalocsa also resided here, and from the 13th century they bore the title “Archbishop of Kalocsa and Bács”. The circumstances of the Franciscan church's foundation are unknown. Tradition links its 12th-century beginnings to the Canons of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, while according to the Hungarian Catholic Lexicon the eastern part of the church was built in the 13th century. The friary is first mentioned in a list compiled around 1334–1340; in 1360, 1378 and 1419 the Hungarian Franciscan province held its chapter here.
The tower and the friary were probably built at the end of the 14th century, and the western half of the church was completed at the end of the 15th century. In 1526, after the Battle of Mohács, the town resisted the Ottoman army returning from Buda, so the friary was sacked and the church turned into a mosque – a mihrab niche still visible today recalls this period.
In 1688 Franciscans fleeing from the Tuzla area of Bosnia arrived in Bač, bringing with them part of their faithful and a venerated image of Mary. The restored part of the church was consecrated in 1699; after the devastation of Rákóczi's War of Independence it was rebuilt from 1716 and acquired its present appearance by the mid-18th century. Its treasure is a late 17th-century icon of the Virgin in the Byzantine tradition, the Joyful Lady of Bač, venerated as miraculous by Catholics and Orthodox alike. Pilgrimages were banned by Joseph II in 1784.
The friary preserves a rich library with volumes from the 15th to the 20th century, and its 16-stop organ, still in use, was built by Franciscan organ builders in the first third of the 19th century. In 2011 a 13th-century fresco of the Crucified Christ with the Virgin Mary was uncovered on the southern buttress. The complex was restored with European Union funding between 2016 and 2018, and some of its rooms now house a museum exhibition.
Visiting: the monastery stands in the centre of Bač, about 60 km north-west of Novi Sad by road. A visit can be combined with the ruins of Bač Fortress and the 15th-century chapel of St Anthony on the banks of the Mostonga at the edge of the town, a long-standing pilgrimage site.
Sources: Hungarian Catholic Lexicon · Wikipedia (Serbian) · Restoration project page (EU–Serbia) · Etnoantropološki problemi – the Bač icon
Photo: Ванилица / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Photo: Ванилица / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Town:
Bač (Bács)
