Benedictine Monastery of St. Mary on Lokrum

Before the arrival of the Benedictines, hermits lived in Lokrum according to the rule of St. Basil. The Lokrum Abbey was officially founded in 1023. Dubrovnik Archbishop Vital and the city prior asked the Benedictine Peter Gučetić, from the St. Mary Abbey on the island of Tremita in the southern Italian region of Apulia, to organize a Benedictine monastery in Lokrum. A man from Dubrovnik named Leon is mentioned as the first abbot. The monastery is mentioned in older writings with the titular of St. Benedict. From the very beginning, the Lokrum monastery was connected with Montecassino. From the very foundation, the Dubrovnik authorities entrusted the Benedictine monks with the care of the almshouse, which was on the islet of Lokrum even before their arrival.

In the period of the 15th and 16th centuries, when the Republic of Dubrovnik was experiencing its golden age, the Lokrum Abbey also experienced its great growth. In 1667, the Great Tremor took place, a large-scale earthquake that significantly damaged Dubrovnik, including the monastery complex on Lokrum. Lokrum abbot Stjepan Gradić, due to difficulties and a small number of monks, proposed the dissolution of the monastery in 1691, which was wholeheartedly supported by the Dubrovnik archdiocese and the Dubrovnik city council. One of the reasons why they advocated the abolition of the monastery was that the income from the goods mostly went to Italy, because as early as 1466, Pope Paul II determined that the Lokrum Abbey was formally incorporated into the Benedictine Congregation of St. Justin in Padua. It was abolished only in 1798, when Pope Pius VI at the proposal of the Dubrovnik authorities, approved the sale of the monastery’s property. In 1798, after the sale, for a while the entire Lokrum island belonged to the Habsburg dynasty, during their time the monastery became a summer house. In 1891, Lokrum passed into the hands of the Dominicans, and since 1958 it has been owned by the state.

IVAN BODROZIC AND IVAN BALTA