Church of Holy Salvation, Cetina

Church of Holy Salvation
Crkva Svetog Spasa
Church of Holy Salvation
Location	Vrlika, Croatia Church of Holy Salvation, Cetina (Croatia)
Country	Croatia
Denomination	Roman Catholic
Architecture
Years built	9th century

Vrlika, Croatia

The Church of the Holy Salvation (Croatian: Crkva Sv. Spasa) is a Pre-Romanesque church in Split-Dalmatia County, Croatia. The exact location of the church is in a small village of Cetina, in inland of Dalmatian Zagora, on spring of river Cetina, 8 km northwest from the town of Vrlika.

This church is quite important in Croatia, as it is the only pre-schism church constructed with a bell tower which is still standing.

It was a large stone church for that period. The church is a one-longitudinal-nave structure with a sanctuary consisting of three apses, in the form of a trefoil. Later, the middle apse was pulled down and substituted by a bigger, rectangular one. The church has strong semi-circular buttresses that give a feeling of fortification, emphasized with mighty bell-tower positioned in front of entrance, creating a westwork.

The church was built near Vrlika, called Vrh Rike in the 9th-10th century. It was dated to the time of Duke Branimir of Dalmatian Croatia through comparative analysis of an altar beam with other artefacts carrying Branimir's name by Ivo Petricioli in 1980 and 1984. It is one of the oldest and best preserved larger monuments of the early Croatian pre-Romanesque sacral architecture.

The church was built by the local župan (district-prefect) Gastika of Cetina, at the recommendation of Pope Stephen VI, but as a private church, built in memory of his family. During the excavation work, several architectural fragments and pieces of stone furnishings adorned with the Croatian interlace have been found. The most important is the fragment of a beam with semi-uncial inscriptions from it is known that the church had been dedicated to Christ and built on the order of the prefect Gastika, the son of Nemira.