Croatia Church Records

Back to Croatia Page► For information about records for non-Christian religions in Croatia, go to the Religious Records page.

Religion Demographics of Croatia
Croatia has no official religion and Freedom of religion is a right defined by the Constitution of Croatia, which also defines all religious communities as equal in front of the law and separate from the state. The most predominant religion in Croatia is Christianity and a large majority of the Croatian population declares themselves as members of the Roman Catholic Church (86.28%). The other main religions of Croatia are Eastern Orthodoxy (4.44%), Protestantism (0.34%), other Christianity (0.30%), and Islam (1.47%). 4.57% of the population describes themselves as non-religious.

Parish Registers

 * Roman Catholic parishes kept registers earlier than Orthodox parishes which were required to keep them only after 1777. Croats are almost exclusively Roman Catholic and Serbs are Orthodox. 
 * Civil transcripts of registers were mandated during the 19th century.
 * A tabular format was adopted after 1848.
 * Older parish registers have been and continue to be transferred to the district historical archives or the Croatia State Archive.
 * The language of the records is either Latin, Croatian, Hungarian, or Italian. Glagolitic and Cyrillic as well as Roman script occur in the records.

Catholic Parish List
Go to Appendix B. for a Croatian Catholic Parish List

Online Databases: FamilySearch Historical Records

 * Roman Catholic (Rimokatolička crkva): Croatia, Church Books, 1516-1994 (Roman Catholic), images.
 * Orthodox (Pravoslavna crkva): Croatia, Church Books, 1516-1994, Orthodox, images.
 * Greek Catholic (Grkokatolička crkva): Croatia, Church Books, 1516-1994, Greek Catholic, images.
 * Evangelical (Evangelička crkva): Croatia, Church Books, 1516-1994, Evangelical, images.
 * Reformed Christian (Reformska crkva): Croatia, Church Books, 1516-1994, Reformed Christian, images.
 * Jewish (Židovska): Croatia, Church Books, 1516-1994, Jewish, images.
 * Military (Vojni): Croatia, Church Books, 1516-1994, Military, images.
 * Civil (Građanski): Croatia, Church Books, 1516-1994, Civil, images.

FamilySearch Microfilming

 * Various church books from the Croatian State Archives
 * Orthodox church records of the Blaski eparchy (Blaski is not a geographic place, but the name of a patriarch. The eparchy covered all of the Orthodox parishes in Dalmatia)
 * Documents from district church archives throughout Croatia
 * Church records from the Osijek State Archives
 * Material from the Varaždin State Archives
 * Catholic church books from the Zadar and Split State Archives
 * Orthodox church books from the Zadar and Split State Archives
 * Church books from the Dubrovnik State Archives
 * Records from the Rijeka State Archives
 * Records from the Pazin State Archives

Websites

 * ARHiNET Croatia 355 vital registers, mostly from the Zagreb area, expected to grow. See Croatia How to Use Croatian Digital Archives.