Tower of Strength

One of the best views ever – Rovinj, Croatia from the Island of Katarina. We have been visiting friends here for 33 years.

The tower of Crkva Santa Eufemia (The Church of Saint Euphemia) dominates the town and has a great story...
Saint Euphemia was the daughter of a prominent citizen from Chalcedon, near Byzantium. As a Christian during the reign of Emperor Diocletian she was imprisoned, tortured and eventually thrown to the lions on 16th September 304AD. Pious Christians preserved her body which was transferred to Constantinople where Emperor Constantine built a church in her honour and the body was entombed in a marble sarcophagus. She remained there until 800AD, when iconoclasts removed the religious icons and monuments.
According to legend (as an atheist I just love this sort of stuff) … the sarcophagus disappeared one stormy night and it was washed up on the shores of Rovinj on 13th July 800 AD. A young man lifted the sarcophagus from the sea and with the aid of two skinny cows carried it up the hill to where the church of St Francis then stood. The townspeople considered it a miracle that it had been washed onto their shores and that a young man and two cows could carry it up the hill and from then on worshiped her as their patron saint.
Analysis shows that the sarcophagus (which is 208 cm long, 195cm high and 95cm wide) dates from the third century AD, is made of Proconnesian Marble and was made in the workshops of Aquileia – it’s carvings are unfinished. The bones it contains are covered in gold embroidered cloth and in 1953 a wax face mask was made by Mila Vod to cover the facial bones.
The feast of St Euphemia is celebrated on 16th September.