Franjevački samostan

There is no solid historical evidence that a Franciscan friary existed in the town on the Drava before the Ottoman period. Tradition from that time does mention Franciscans in the nearby village of Antin, but to this day there is no real proof of a Franciscan house in that village just outside Osijek. After the Ottoman defeat at Vienna in 1683 and the victory of the Christian army at Nagy Harsány on 18 August 1687, Slavonia was liberated, and with it Osijek, where the Franciscans settled straight away. They made their home in the oldest part of Osijek, Tvrđa, and have stayed there ever since.

For about ten years the Franciscans in Osijek lived in very poor conditions. They had humble lodgings, into which Fr Simon of Bač had moved back in 1687. Through the efforts of Fr Pavao of Rama, in 1699 the Franciscans began building the original friary, with two wings – east and south – in an L shape. Construction lasted until 1705. A year later, by a short procedure, the friary was also formally established.

In 1733 the Franciscans began building a new friary on land south of Klanac, which they had received as a gift from the War Chamber. Once some problems had been resolved, building continued in 1752–1757, and it was fully completed in 1761. The new friary was linked by vaulted arches to the east wing of the old friary building, and by an added corridor with stairs along the north wall of the church, which gave access to the choir loft built at that time.

On 16 June 1786 the Franciscans had to hand this friary over to the military authorities for use as an armoury and move into the Jesuit residence next to the parish Church of St Michael the Archangel on Jesuit Square (today's Trg Jurja Križanića). The Franciscans moved into their present premises in 1938, after the Jesuit residence was exchanged for the building of the then state Ministry of Defence in Franjevačka Street (today Trg Vatroslava Lisinskog).

The friary and the Franciscan church, monuments of the highest cultural and religious value, like the whole of Osijek's Tvrđa, were badly damaged by direct hits from several shells during the Croatian War of Independence in 1991 and 1992. The material damage was great. The friary's entire roof was destroyed, ceilings in some rooms collapsed, and the church windows were shattered. Shell fragments damaged the church façade and, in part, the church interior and its furnishings. Because of this enormous damage, the full restoration of the façade and the interior walls of the friary and church is still going on today, in the first decade of the 21st century.