Mišura Stipan: Biser uskoplja

Stipan Mišura: Biser uskoplja

Sketches from the past of the parish of St. Elijah the Prophet in Kandia (1875-2010)

A word on the occasion I remember the painful and difficult situation in communist times when many materials were destroyed so that they would not fall into the hands of the UDBA, which constructed a process out of harmless things, if it needed it. I also remember better how many things were left unrecorded, for fear that they would fall into the hands of the secret service, which would turn these materials into an affair of the process. Many documents were picked up by the secret service and taken from our church archives, and we never found out about them nor were they returned to us. It is even more painful that so much was destroyed in the Homeland War, especially our church archive and books. Then there was a danger of erasing the traces of our roots and our survival in these areas. After that, ideology began to shape a new history. They began to control our memory and young people are less and less accepting the truth about the past and about our identity. All this provoked me to invite Fr. Stipan Mišura, a priest from the parish in Kandy, whom I know well from my student days, to accept to write and to snatch from oblivion what he could to save himself. As I knew that he loved history, I thought that he could investigate whether anything was still written down, but also memorized, and at the same time question those who remember a little more because of the number of years. I was pleased by his willingness to write a memoir about his parish from its foundation until today. This memory is preserved in some documents, but it was also told by people, and it includes his memory that he collected from others because he loved his area. Even though he left his area, he carried it in his heart and dreamed about it and pondered it in his heart. You now have a written memory in your hands. At the same time, to get to know some things, if you didn't know them, and if you did, to awaken your memory and transport yourself back to that past. This is a wonderful memory for our young people, who find it difficult to imagine what our ancestors lived through and survived. How much they had to invest to preserve their roots and survive. These young people sprung from those roots. Those who do not know how to appreciate their roots will quickly dry up. The truth is that the present is only in our hands. However, you should know: in order to live and realize the present and truly understand it, it is necessary to know the past, because we build on it and live from it. This is how we realize ourselves for future generations. One important task is preserving memory and passing it on to younger generations. This is a book that should challenge those who love their region to get to know it even better, explore the past, and build the present. There should not be a single person who was born in that area, regardless of when and where he went, who will not acquire and read his past, and then love it even more and connect with it and thus recognize himself in his roots and his identity. This is the meaning of collecting our memory and trying to preserve it in written form for future generations. That's why I thank Fr. Stipan Misuri on this work, which he composed out of love for his region and made present in the present and future through the book. Let it be a challenge to many historians to examine the past even better and prevent the rewriting of our history and the erasure of our memory. May God's blessing accompany all those who lovingly accept and read this edition, and to you, dear brother Stjepan, thank you for your work and don't get tired and continue to be a good collector of memory and passing it on to future generations. As this book is given to the reader, I call for God's light and God's blessing to accompany him. Vinko Cardinal Puljić Metropolitan Archbishop of Vrhbosan