Church of St. Mary

Žirje is the outermost inhabited island of the Šibenik archipelago, lying roughly 22 kilometres southwest of Šibenik, to which it administratively belongs. Covering about 15 square kilometres of maquis-covered limestone ridges around a fertile central valley, it is often described as the only permanently settled open-sea island of the group. Its population has fallen sharply over the last century, from around 780 residents in 1921 to well under 150 today, most of them still living from fishing, olives and small-scale farming.

The island's history stretches back to the 6th century, when Byzantine forces under Emperor Justinian built the defensive strongholds of Gradina and Gušterna above the bays of Stupica and Mala Stupica; both are still standing and are today protected as cultural monuments. In 1059, Croatian king Petar Krešimir IV granted Žirje to the Benedictines, and the island later passed from Zadar's jurisdiction to Šibenik's in 1323. Under Venetian rule, Šibenik's noble families built summer residences here in the 15th and 16th centuries. In more recent history, parts of Žirje served military purposes for decades and were off-limits to civilians until relatively recently.

Among the island's four registered cultural monuments is the Parish Church of St. Mary (Župna crkva sv. Marije). Its history is layered rather than single-dated: the oldest surviving part of the building, now forming the church's apse, was built in 1480, and the church was renovated and enlarged toward the end of the 18th century. The structure was then rebuilt to essentially its present size in 1891, consecrated in 1906, and restored again in 1964. In other words, it is a small, plain island parish church whose fabric spans four centuries of expansion rather than a single-period showpiece — no reliable source describes it as a Baroque monument, and that label should not be attached to it.

Today Žirje remains a quiet, sparsely populated retreat reached by ferry from Šibenik, with the old church still standing at the centre of its small village alongside the Byzantine-era fortresses on the surrounding hills. Precisely because it keeps so much of its slow, unhurried character, many visitors combine a day of sightseeing with a private gulet charter from Sibenik, using the island as one stop on a wider tour of the archipelago rather than a destination reached on its own.