Petar Petretić


Petar Petretić was a historian, linguist, and Catholic bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Zagreb.

Activities related to Serbs

With accentuated hatred Petretić wrote numerous obviously untrue texts and even larger elaborates against Serbs and Orthodox Christianity, with detailed advises how to Catholicize Serbs. Petretić was afraid that many Catholics would convert to Orthodox Christianity because of the privileges Orthodox Serbs received. He worked hard to convert Serbs into Eastern Catholicism and wrote a detailed work about the Serbs.
In 1648 the king appointed Sava Stanislavić as bishop of the Bishopric of Marča, as wished by the Slavonian Serbs, although Petretić proposed another candidate. In 1650 Petretić persuaded Simeon Kordić, archimandrite of Lepavina, to act against the Serbs. Kordić received funds to establish school for education of Serb children as Catholics. In 1651 he wrote a work in which he elaborated how in 1600 many "Vlachs or Rascians or better to say Serb people" migrated from Ottoman Empire to the territory of Slavonia and Croatia near the Ottoman border.
In 1667 Petretić wrote a recommendation for Mijakić's appointment on the position of bishop of Marča for the supervision of the Orthodox population.