Blessed Augustine (Augustin) Kažotić

Augustine Kažotić, the first Croatian blessed one, a Dominican and bishop, was born in Trogir around the year 1260 and died in Lucera on August 3, 1323.

He joined the order of St. Dominic in Split. After graduating from the Sorbonne University, he worked with Fr. Nicholas Bocassi, who later became Cardinal and Pope Benedict XI. In 1301 he appointed Kažotić bishop of Zagreb. As the bishop of Zagreb he was a theologian writer and preacher.

When touring his diocese, he encouraged priests in pastoral work and spiritual life. He reformed the liturgy and introduced the original ‘Zagreb liturgy’.

He established the cathedral school, introduced joint reading of the breviary in the cathedral, paid attention to the hygiene of the people and health service and took care of the poor.

He regularly gave most of his diocesan income to the poor. The Pope soon appointed him the bishop of Lucera, a small town in southern Italy, where he died one year later. His body is kept in the cathedral in Lucera and his relics in the Zagreb cathedral. Pope Clement XI beatified him in 1702 and a process of canonisation is in progress.

Historian Balthazar Krčelić, a canon, wrote that in 1312, when the cathedral was being built, there was a severe drought and that by intercession of the holy bishop a spring of water today known as Manduševac at the present- day Jelačić square gushed.

Lately it has been nicely renovated.