Photos

Our Gospa od Skrpjela (Lady of the Rock) is an exquisite anomaly which grew, perhaps, out of remorse for the heinous act perpetrated on St George. Around a small crag (skripio in Dalmatian dialect) local people started to built another island. It began with the hulls of scuttled ships and was reinforced by stones carried boatload after boatload to form a seat for a votive chapel which in 1630 they dedicated to the intercession of the mother of Christ. By 1725 the orginal chapel of the Gospa od Skrpjela had been enlarged by the addition of a sanctuary with a distinctive octagonal dome. In the small square in front of the church they arranged a so-called " place of reconciliation", the idea beeing that quarrelling parties in local disputes might work out fair solutions in the shade of the church and so avoid the Venetian courts. The stone benches are a reminder of the personal and community dramas that must have been enacted here.An adjoining room in the Gospa od Skrpjela holds a veritable antique shop of artefacts dedicated over the centuries in gratitude for delivery from danger; everthing from sea-rusted-pirate-proof locks to latter-day protection - twisted car bumpers. Every year at dusk on July 22 the rite of 'scattering stones' is re-enacted in a colourful procession of brightly decorated boats tied together and accompaniedby music and folk-singing. A second ritual in which, in the absence of Ottoman invaders, a rooster is set adrift and subsequently despatched in a great volley of fire, is no longer encouraged. Whether by chance or design the completed island has taken the outline of a galleon. A visit here is pause for thought that for all the gorgeous churches on the mainland endowed by rich merchants and ship owners, the Gospa od Skrpjela represents a distillation of the spiritual conscience of the ordinary seaman of Perast.