Church of St. Sylvester (Biševo)

The Church of St. Sylvester in the settlement of Polje on the island of Biševo was built in 1050. Its builder was the priest Ivan Gaudijev Grlić from Split, who handed it over to the Benedictines from the Tremiti Islands for management. The church was built on the site of an older early Christian building from the 6th century, as evidenced by the remains of mosaics, ceramics and ancient walls discovered during archaeological research. The Monastery of St. Sylvester soon became a significant Benedictine abbey, in full force during the 12th and 13th centuries, with its own abbot and a large number of monks. It had estates on Biševo, Vis and Hvar and great privileges, which are confirmed by papal and royal charters. In the 13th century, the monks moved to the Monastery of St. Nicholas (Muster) in Komiža due to pirate attacks, while the Biševo monastery gradually lost its importance. The church, originally pre-Romanesque, was rebuilt over time - in the 13th/14th In the 19th century it received a vault with pylons, in the 15th century massive buttresses, and in the 19th century a bell tower with a preslica and additional modifications to the interior. Conservation and restoration works in 1994/95 restored its medieval appearance: the apse was cleaned, a 19th-century wall was removed, the roof was renovated, and valuable traces such as the graffiti of a galley and the graves of monks were discovered. The most famous artistic treasure of the church was the Biševo Madonna – one of the oldest paintings of the Virgin Mary in Dalmatia (around 1220), a work of proto-Venetian painting. Today it is kept in the Hvar Cathedral of St. Stephen. On the feast of St. Sylvester, December 31, a holy mass is still celebrated in the church, after which locals and visitors celebrate the holiday with a gathering. The Church of St. Silvester and the remains of the monastery form a unique historical and cultural whole, testifying to the important role of Biševo in the Middle Ages and the rich heritage of the Benedictines on the Adriatic islands.