MONASTÈRE FRANCISCAIN DE RAMA-ŠĆIT

This Catholic monastery (Franjevački Samostan Rama-Šćit) enjoys an amazing setting: it was founded by the Franciscans in the 15th century on a hill that became a peninsula when the artificial lake of Rama was impounded in 1968. Several times burned and destroyed, it was largely rebuilt in 1857. During the Second World War, the pro-Nazi stance of the Croatian Catholic clergy led to it being ransacked and used as a refuge by Tito's partisans. It was then transformed into a barracks, then returned to the monks in 1956. Major renovation work was undertaken in the 1960s and a new wing was built in 1986. In 1991, on the occasion of the seven hundred years of Franciscan presence in the country, artists donated a hundred works to the monastery: paintings, stained glass, mosaics and sculptures. Some of the sculptures are displayed outside in the "sculpture garden". It is there that the Cross of Rama, a bronze of 4 m height is located. Made in 1992 by the Croatian sculptor Mile Blažević (b. 1950), this work has become the symbol of the monastery and appears on the stamps of the Hrvatska Pošta Mostar (Croatian Post Office in Mostar, one of the three public postal services in the country). Since 2001, the monastery has housed the "House of Peace", a religious structure designed to help the victims of the 1992-1995 war. In 2007, the complex also acquired an ethnographic museum.