More than just a village church, little St Lucy's was the site of one of the most important cultural discoveries in Croatia 鈥 the 11th-century Ba拧ka Tablet 鈥 which was found in the floor of the church in 1851. Written in Glagolitic, it contains the earliest reference in the Croatian language to a Croatian king. Visitors are invited to watch a video that tells the fascinating story of the tablet's discovery and eventual translation, and are then shown around the church itself.
The squat, early Romanesque church was built on the foundations of a 4th-century villa and has a Roman column and gravestone built into its porch. The famous stone tablet is now in the Strossmayer Gallery of Old Masters in Zagreb, but a replica has been positioned in its original place, where the rood screen would once have stood. On the feast of St Lucy (13 December), the sun strikes the inscription referring to the saint. Look out for the statue of St Lucy, depicted with an angel holding her gouged-out eyes on a plate 鈥 a reference to her gruesome martyrdom.
The church is in the village of Jurandvor and well signposted from the approach to Ba拧ka; it's only 2km from town, so is easily reached on foot.
