Ruins of the Church of St Andrew, Baćina

In the village of Baćina, in the Sladinac area, in the town of Ploče, lie the remains of an early Christian basilica which tradition dedicates to St Andrew. It is interesting to visitors because it shows how a late antique church was turned into a pre-Romanesque one in the early Middle Ages.

The building was part of a larger cemetery that arose through the activity of the Narona diocese. It is a single-nave basilica from the 6th century with a wide horseshoe-shaped apse, side annexes and a confessio in which relics were kept. Earlier, when the method of vaulting was changed, the basilica became a pre-Romanesque church covered with a barrel vault, and the interior is divided by niches likewise barrel-vaulted. Everything indicates that the church was the main sanctuary and burial place of one of the ancient settlements recorded in the Baćina area.

The remains are a protected cultural property, entered in the Register of Cultural Goods of the Republic of Croatia under the code Z-4466.

Data: Register of Cultural Goods of the Republic of Croatia (Ministry of Culture and Media), Open Licence; coordinates: DGU (centre of the settlement).