Kirchenreformen und Säkularisierung in Kroatien im langen 18. Jahrhundert
Church reforms and secularization in Croatia during the long 18th century

Summary/Abstract: The church was most affected by secularization, which caused the closure of the old monasteries and the destruction of church buildings and their furnishings - this claim is widespread in older literature. But secularization was a complex and long-term process that influenced the church in different ways. This text presents the consequences of secularization for the church from an art historical perspective, using examples of churches and monasteries in northern Croatia. The abolition of the Jesuits and Pauline orders also meant new circumstances for the largest monasteries in the country - Jesuit monasteries in Zagreb and Varaždin, taken over by Pauline, and Pauline monastery in Lepoglava. While the monastery churches continued to be used as parish churches or chapels, the monastery buildings were repurposed and drastically redesigned several times. And while in the cities the former monastery buildings and partially their function has been preserved, outside the cities a greater degree of destruction can be observed. The second consequence of secularization, or more precisely, the rationalization of church structure, had a completely different impact. In applying the new, clearly calculated criteria for the establishment of new parishes and consequently for the construction of new or the redesign of existing church buildings, caused an intensive construction and furnishing activity in the last decades of the 18th century. The new regulations for church buildings, which were based on the size of the parish and the number of residents, were mainly applied in the military border. Numerous archives contain interesting plans for church buildings and their furnishings in the new parishes, which were used depending on the size of the parish - for the parish churches of the "smaller, medium or larger type for 500, 600 to 800 or 1000 to 1200 souls". Secularization in Croatia resulted in intensive construction of sacral architecture, which is particularly interesting from an art-historical point of view because of the style of architecture and furnishings, in which classicism and baroque combine, two mutually reciprocal stylistic concepts. The monastery buildings of the old orders were mainly not destroyed, but found new functions - for military use, as prisons, or were taken over by other orders. Thus, the widespread former narrative of negative consequences of secularisation on church must be corrected.

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