Zadar Cathedral

The Cathedral of St. Anastasia (Katedrala svete Stošije), on Zadar's Old Town peninsula, is the largest church in Dalmatia and one of the oldest working churches on Croatia's coast. It stands on the site of a Christian basilica built in the 4th and 5th centuries, originally dedicated to St. Peter; it was rededicated to St. Anastasia after the diocese received her relics from the Byzantine emperor Nikephoros I in the early 9th century, during the time of Bishop Donatus.

Most of the building visible today — the three-nave Romanesque structure — was raised in the 12th and 13th centuries. It was badly damaged during the Venetian and Crusader siege of Zadar in 1202 and had to be rebuilt; an earlier version had already been consecrated by Pope Alexander III in 1177, and the rebuilt cathedral was reconsecrated in 1285. The elaborate two-tier façade, with its three portals and rose windows, was finished in 1324.

The freestanding bell tower has an even longer construction history: its lower section dates to 1452, while the upper floors were only added between 1890 and 1894, designed by the English architect and art historian Thomas Graham Jackson. Inside, a marble sarcophagus in the left apse holds the relics of St. Anastasia. The cathedral's own hexagonal baptistery, a 6th-century structure, was destroyed in the Allied bombing of Zadar on 16 December 1943 and was not rebuilt until 1989.

The cathedral remains an active parish church — Pope John Paul II visited in June 2003 — and the site has been put forward for Croatia's tentative list of nominations to UNESCO's World Heritage list.

Visitors who climb the bell tower for the view over the rooftops often plan the rest of the day around the water, with chartering a gulet in Croatia a common way to see the coastline the cathedral overlooks.