EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH BELOW THE CHURCH OF ST. VITUS AND THE CHURCH OF ST. VITUS

Early Christian church below the church of St. Vitus and the church of St. Vitus

(Church of St. Vitus)

Christianity came to Naron early, as evidenced by the remains of a church built in the 5th century on the site of the present-day Church of St. Vitus. The church had a complex floor plan consisting of a nave with a semicircular apse at the rear, reinforced by buttresses, which housed the sanctuary, and a vestibule at the front. On the south and north sides of the nave were annexes, i.e. auxiliary rooms that served liturgical purposes, thus giving the single-nave church the appearance of a three-nave basilica. The most significant annex is the baptistery, i.e. the baptismal font in which an octagonal baptismal font has been preserved, which was coated with hydraulic plaster painted in imitation of various types of marble. It is interesting that part of the wall and a walled-in mushroom-shaped door have been preserved in the western wall of the present-day church. In addition, a large number of fragments of stone church furniture from the basilica have been found, such as fragments of the altar partition, capitals, and the like. After the basilica was abandoned in the late Middle Ages, a cemetery was built on its ruins. After that, in the early modern period, possibly during the Turkish rule of the Neretva valley in the 17th century, the present-day church of St. Vitus, the saint after whom the place was named, was built over the remains of the cemetery and basilica, partly following its walls. It is a small single-nave church with a square apse at the back and a bell tower on a preslic on the facade, which are characteristic of the sacral architecture of the wider Dalmatian region. The portico and two large square windows on the facade are special, and it is interesting that one of the bells dates from the beginning of the 16th century.