Church of St. Stephen (Stari Grad, Hvar)

The Church of St. Stephen (Crkva sv. Stjepana u Starom Gradu) is the parish church of Stari Grad on the island of Hvar in Croatia. It is dedicated to the martyred Pope Stephen I. It stands on the eastern side of a small square, Trg sv. Stjepana (St. Stephen’s Square), in the historical centre of Stari Grad.

It was built from 1605 onward at the site of an earlier church also dedicated to St. Stephen. The previous church, built in the 9th/10th Century, had served as the cathedral for the bishop of Hvar from 1147, when the diocese was established, until 1278, when the island placed itself under the protection of the Venetian Republic and the bishopric was moved to the town of Hvar. It was severely damaged during a raid of the Ottoman admiral Uluç Ali on the island of Hvar in 1571 before he participated with his Algerian corsair fleet in the Battle of Lepanto on 7 October 1571. Once the town had recovered from this devastation, the ruins of the old cathedral and of the adjacent episcopal palace were demolished and the construction of the new church begun in 1605. The bell tower was only completed in 1753.

The present church, in the style of Dalmatian Baroque, is a large three-nave basilica with a square apse, built of stone from the near-by island of Korčula which oxidizes over time and takes on a red-brown colour. It is the work of local craftsmen. The main portal in the centre of the west-facing façade, and probably the entire façade, is the work of Ivan Pomenić from Korčula who also worked on the Cathedral of St. Stephen in Hvar. The two side aisles are the work of Mark Foretić from Korčula and of the master of the Skarpa-family of Stari Grad.

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