The church in Slunj

The Catholic Church in this town has been acting for centuries as an active participant and chronicler of life in the region. The Church of the Holy Trinity is at the place of a former Franciscan Monastery of St. Benedict, destroyed and burned town in the war horrors of the distant 1583 and its action in the region has been characterised by the community of the church and its believers in ‘good and evil’. At the time of wars, the church bells would mark the danger from a new attack of conquerors. The Church was thoroughly renovated during the 18^th century, and in 1780 it got its today’s form with two side naves and a belfry reworked in the baroque style, which is witnessed by the Latin inscription on the left nave of the church. It got its today’s appearance after the Homeland War in which it was burnt down to the ground in November 1991. The black scenario repeated itself almost identically for abbot Bernardine in the 16^th century and the parish priest at the end of the 20^th century. Both were saving books and statues of saints from destruction, while Mile Pecić, the parish priest, with his diplomatic negotiations with the aggressor army skilfully managed to take a bus full of women and children from the besieged town to free territory. The diary of the parish priest from Slunj was written in the period from 1989 to 1991 as notes about the wartime events in Slunj and the surroundings. In order to preserve the notes, the parish priest buried them in the ground and, after having come back from where he was exiled, he dug them out and made them ready to be published in 2003 under the title ‘The Buried Diary’.