The logbook of the listing of the archival material of the church archives of the Diocese of Poreč and Pula and of the Pazin Apostolic Administration (18 December 1970 – 28 October 1980)

Abstract

Whoever deals with local history knows that church archives are abundant and irreplaceable sources for studying the place where the archival material was created. It should be noted that the church archives are strictly protected by the canonical regulations of the Catholic Church. It is often the case that church documents are the only source for local history, in cases where archives created by the activity of state and other civilian organisations were destroyed. In 1970, following the agreement made between the Historical Archives in Pazin (today: the Pazin State Archives - DAPA) and the Diocese of Poreč and Pula and the Pazin Apostolic Administration, the listing of all church archives in the area of the two church organizations commenced. Two archival workers, one named by the Church (Ivan Grah, priest), and the other by the Archives (Jakov Jelinčić, archivist), during the time they were active organising and listing the church archives maintained the Logbook, which is the subject of this paper. The time span of the Logbook ranges from 18 December 1970 to 28 October 1980. Jakov Jelinčić copied the Logbook with all the mistakes and peculiarities and prepared the “Index” of the offices where, at the time of their work, church archival fonds were housed, with the indication of the day the fonds was being processed, the hours spent arranging and listing by every employee, followed by the number of individual places and pages of the Logbook where an activity report is located. The closing chapter of this paper was written by Ilija Jakovljević. In the “Introduction”, in addition to emphasizing the role of Reverend Grah, Jakov Jelinčić underlines the merits of the late Bishop of Poreč and Pula Dragutin Nežić, of the then manager of the Archives of Croatia (now Croatian State Archives) Bernard Stulli and the then manager of the Croatian Historical Archives in Pazin (today: The State Archives in Pazin) Dražen Vlahov. In the closing chapter, Ilija Jakovljević speaks about Grah’s and Jelinčić’s merits, emphasizing in particular the role of Msgr. Grah as a historian and archivist.