Return to the Otars (Altars)

The consequences of Ottoman expansion were changes in social relations, demographics and the confessional structure of the population in the conquered territories. After the disappearance of the Bosnian Kingdom, Islamization, initially insignificant, was accompanied by the destruction of Catholic churches or their conversion into Muslim places of worship in the 16th century. Along with urban centres taking on an oriental Islamic character, an important element of the Ottoman state's security strategy was colonization, which altered the confessional structure of the population. The 17th-century wars reduced the Catholic population to its lowest numbers ever and confined it to the smallest area in history. In this confessionally divided society characterised by a specific spatial distribution of the population, Catholics primarily inhabited suburban and rural areas, with the exception of mining centres. They were financially and materially weaker. Lacking sacred buildings, the few remaining parishes conducted their worship services in the open. In such places, far from urban centres, older sacral layers can often be discerned, which are more noticeable in areas less affected by migration processes and demographic shifts. Some of these locations have preserved the noun oltar (altar), or its archaic form otar, in their names. The centuries-old tradition of gathering Catholics in such places, which oral tradition connects with the pre-Ottoman period, reveals the specificity of the religious practice of Catholic Croats under the Ottomans in the area covered by the Bosnian Apostolic Vicariate in the 18th century. Keywords: Otar; Misište; portable altar; sacral layering; Apostolic Vicariate of Bosnia.