The Parish Church in Sv. Ivan Zelina

August 25, 2009

We all went to Zelina to discuss preparations for the exhibition «Templars in Zelina Region» with Mladen. Having done that, he took us to the church to re-discuss the issue of the tower, i.e., he was getting interested in the slits (loopholes) on the second story, in particular the one with a pointed triangular upper termination. Climbing the tower is always an experience, and it was particularly so on Tuesday, as the first section of the ladder was missing and we had to procure our own.

We managed to get into the roof area, where we did not find anything in particular at first, until we discovered that, by bringing our ladder, somebody could creep down to the roof of the sacristy and survey the eastern end of the southern wall. Vjeko did this and he claims there are pieces in the wall which may be remains of ashlar belonging to the Romanesque church.

While crawling back to the tower Maja noticed a stone wall between the Baroque vaults. It is a total mystery, but it might be the trace of an old triumphal arch, in which case the church was rather short and wide, not unusual in SW Pannonia, and attached to a fat Tower which, as Imre Takacs said two years ago, may have originally been a self-standing fortification.

Otherwise, the slits do seem to have bee redone, and may have been originally round-headed Romanesque openings. So, step by step, and in a hundred years or so, giving a few restoration campaigns and an earthquake or two, and the secrets of the Romanesque church in Zelina might be unraveled.