Osor, Croatia


Osor is a village and a small port on the Croatian island of Cres, in Primorje-Gorski Kotar county. Administratively, it is part of the town of Mali Lošinj. As of 2021, it had a population of 26.
Osor lies at a narrow channel that separates the islands of Cres and Lošinj. The channel was built in Roman times to make sailing possible. Now the islands are connected with a rotating bridge. Originally, Cres and Lošinj were one island, Osor, before the channel was cut.

History

The first settlements of the area date in the prehistoric times. In Roman times, Osor, then called Apsoros, also used to refer to the whole island of Lošinj, was an important center of trade on the route to the ports of Northern Adriatic. After the fall of Roman Empire, Osor became a part of Byzantine Empire and was a seat of diocese since the 6th century.
In 840 it was burned down by Saracens, in the 10th century, it came under Croatian rule. In the 14th century it was under the rule of the Republic of Venice. From the 15th century on, Osor lost its strategic and commercial importance. Due to malaria, it was ultimately abandoned as the administrative center of the island in favor of the town of Cres.
In the 19th century the island was under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and after First World War part of the Kingdom of Italy. After World War II Osor-Ossero was a part of the Republic of Yugoslavia.
Today, Osor is a tourist-oriented town in Croatia, with sculptures of Ivan Meštrović and others scattered around the center. Several camping sites are located in the surroundings.

Ecclesiastical history

Residential bishopric

The bishopric of what was called in Latin Absorus was founded circa 600, maybe as early as the 6th century, as a suffragan of the Metropolitan Archbishop of the Late Roman province Dalmatia Inferior's capital Salona, but the first bishop of the see whose name is known was Dominicus in the last third of the 9th century. It has also been called Absor and Lusin.
The diocese was from 1146 a suffragan of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Zadar/Zara. Its cathedral, the Church of the Assumption, was built from 1463 until 1497. The area was taken by the Ottoman Empire in 1621 and held for a short time, during which its Christians travelled to Šibenik to fulfil their Easter duty of Confession and Communion.
Absorus ceased in 1828 to be a residential see, when its territory was added to that of the Croatian diocese of Krk.
;Suffragan Bishops of Osor
  • ...
  • Lovro, later Metropolitan Archbishop of Salona
  • Michele, Friars Minor
  • Giacomo
  • Angelo, O.F.M.
  • Bonifacio
  • Guglielmo
  • Cipriano
  • Crisogono
  • Martino
  • Matteo Cernota, later Bishop of Šibenik
  • Bonifacio, previously Bishop of Trebinje , Bishop of Šibenik
  • Michele da Zara, O.F.M.
  • Tommaso
  • Pactius
  • Mauro Rassoli
  • Isidoro, Benedictine Order
  • Vito da Cherso, O.F.M.
  • Pietro Leon, later Bishop of Ceneda
  • Simone de Valle, was an auditor in the case of John Myssenden Vicar of Leatherhead against the Priory of Leeds near Maidstone in 1446. The Register of Letters to England, Scotland and Ireland reports the case
  • Domenico
  • Antonio di Pago, later Bishop of Kotor
  • Marco Negro, previously Bishop of Kotor
  • Giovanni Robobello, later Bishop of Feltre , Metropolitan Archbishop of Zadar (Zara)
  • Giovanni Giusto
  • Andrea Corner
  • Giovanni Battista Garzoni
  • Andrea Peveraro
  • Antonio de Cappo
  • Marco Fedeli-Gonzaga, succeeding as former Coadjutor Bishop of Osor ; later Bishop of Mantova (Mantua))
  • Coriolano Garzadoro
  • Ottaviano Garzadoro
  • Marc'Antonio Verità
  • Giovanni de Rossi, previously Bishop of Kefalonia–Zakynthos, Bishop of Chiron
  • Matteo Scrivanelli
  • Simone Gaudenti
  • Nicolò Drasich
  • Giovanni Ferro
  • Mate Karaman, later Metropolitan Archbishop of Zadar (Zara)
  • Niccolò Dinarico , later Metropolitan Archbishop of Salona
  • Bonaventura Bernardi
  • Simone Spalatin, previously Bishop of Korcula
  • Francesco Pietro Raccamarich, previously Bishop of Kotor

Titular see

It is today listed by the Catholic Church as a since 1933, when the diocese was nominally restored as a titular bishopric Osor, also named Absorus in Latin and Ossore in Curiate Italian.
It has had the following incumbents of the fitting episcopal rank :