The Church of the Most Holy Redeemer 7 Day Weather Forecast

Attractions in Otavice, Croatia.

The church of the Most Holy Redeemer is the last resting place of the great Croatian sculptor Ivan Meštrović (1883 - 1962), as well as of his closest family members: mother Marta, father Mate, brothers Marko and Petar, son Tvrtko and wife Olga. The construction of the object fulfilled his intention to build a tomb for his family and to present his native town a church in which, according to his wish, the Holy Mass would be held in the Old Slavi...

Otavice, Ružić
Otavice
Croatia
22322

00385 (0)21 340 800

The church of the Most Holy Redeemer is the last resting place of the great Croatian sculptor Ivan Meštrović (1883 - 1962), as well as of his closest family members: mother Marta, father Mate, brothers Marko and Petar, son Tvrtko and wife Olga. The construction of the object fulfilled his intention to build a tomb for his family and to present his native town a church in which, according to his wish, the Holy Mass would be held in the Old Slavic liturgy.
For its construction (1926 - 1930), he chose a hillock in the north-western part of Petrovo polje, called Paraćeva glavica, which belongs to the cadastre of the village Ružić and is only a 10-minute-ealk from the family house in Otavice. Meštrović’s architectural concept was carried out by the architects Harold Bilinić and Lavoslav Horvat and by the engineer Marin Marasović, who were the sculptor’s devoted friends and life-long associates, whereas the Drniš Municipality donated the land.
The layout of the exterior forms a simple square base with orthogonal projections on all four sides, while the interior transporms into octagon. The interior wall is broken into a regular pattern of alternating square and semicircular niches which serve as a frame for reliefs carved after Meštrović’s plaster models. Above the altar stands "Eternally Crucified" carried on the wings of a seraph, while four niches are adorned with "Evangelists". "The Nativity" of Christ shown in the northern square niche is iconographically accompanied by the scene of "Annunciation" on the side walls - the figure of "Virgin Mary" and the "Angel Gabriel". Placed inside the opposite southern niche is the "Lamentation" supplemented with two arising "Souls of the deceased". Decoration of the dome was unfortunately never finished.
The entrance to the church was decorated with bronze doors, where in ten panels Meštrović portrayed his family members. Unfortunatelly, the bronze doors with theirs portraits were stolen during the Greater Serbian occupation in the Homeland War (1991 - 1995) and have not been found to this day.