Sveti Duje: Split’s big feast day celebrated today in a different way

Split with Cathedral of Saint Domnius in the background

SPLIT, 7 May 2020 – The centuries-old celebration of Saint Domnius (Sveti Duje) or the Feast of St. Domnius is being marked in a different way in the Dalmatian city of Split today.

Every year on the 7th of May, the Day of the City of Split, Sudamja, is also celebrated. Usually, the day is marked by various events and festivities on the Riva but not this year. 

Due to the coronavirus epidemic, this year’s feast day of the Split and Split-Dalmatia County patron, Saint Domnius, is being observed without the traditional procession and mass celebration on Split’s Riva waterfront.

– This year we will have to do without the rich programme that all of you regularly prepare in honour of our patron saint. However, you can be sure that all of us will have the love and protection of Saint Domnius, Split-Makarska Archbishop Marin Barisic said earlier.

How Split’s feast day was usually celebrated (Photo: Vojko Basic/TZ Split)

A mass will be held at 10 a.m. in the Cathedral of Saint Domnius and broadcast live via media channels.  

Saint Domnius was a 3rd-century Bishop of Salona and was martyred with seven other Christians in the persecutions of Emperor Diocletian. The tradition holds that Domnio came to Rome with Saint Peter and was then sent by Peter to evangelize Dalmatia, where he was martyred along with 8 soldiers he had converted.

Saint Domnius became the Split’s patron saint, and the city’s cathedral (the Cathedral of Saint Domnius) was built-in the mausoleum of Diocletian itself, the emperor who martyred him.

The Cathedral of Saint Domnius