Note 198 — Chapter IV · THE PILGRIMAGE ON THE FOREST-MOUNTAIN.

In Bosnia even the parochial duties are performed by monks of this order, who discard the monastic dress and wear the ordinary civil costume, including cutlasses and pistols. Every three years the chapter of the order (the Provincial, that is, of the Minorites, with a custos and four definitors) elects a ‘mission for the cure of souls,’ and the monks who are doing service an secular priests are either confirmed in their office or exchanged for others. The head or ‘Quardian’ of every monastery is also priest for his district. Thus the parish churches are completely dependent on the Franciscan brotherhood, each monastery possessing so many churches. This at Gučiagora has nine; that at Sutiska, the largest in Bosnia, as many as twenty-two churches. As parish priests, however, the brothers find their allegiance somewhat divided between the Vicar Apostolic of Bosnia and the Provincial of their order. See Thoemmel, Beschreibung des Vilajet Bosnien, p. 96, &c.