Church of St Stephen and Lapidarium, Brela

The parish church of St Stephen the Protomartyr in Brela on the Makarska Riviera is worthwhile for its neo-Romanesque architecture, but also for the medieval tombstones displayed beside it.

The present church was built from 1887 to 1897 on the site of a more modest building from the beginning of the 18th century; a church on this site is already mentioned in 1626. It is single-nave, measuring 11 by 30.5 metres, built of roughly dressed stone in horizontal courses, with a square apse and a polygonal sacristy in the east. The main altar of Carrara marble was completed in 1897 by Josip Barišković, and the side altars partly originate from the old church. During the enlargement of the cemetery in 1996 a medieval grave was investigated; nine slabs from the 15th century have been preserved, six decorated with a sword and shield. They are displayed west of the cemetery as a lapidarium.

The church with its lapidarium is a protected cultural good and is entered in the Register of Cultural Goods of the Republic of Croatia under the code Z-7062.

Photo: Ing.Mgr.Jozef Kotulič, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.
Data: Register of Cultural Goods of the Republic of Croatia (Ministry of Culture and Media), Open Licence; coordinates: DGU (centre of the settlement).