Parish Church of Annunciation
The east side of the main square in Svetvinčenat is overlooked by the parish church dedicated to the Annunciation. The church was built in the 16th century and has a Renaissance trefoil façade made of local chiselled stone. The church has a nave only, ending up with a semicircular apse, and hosts four marble and one wooden altar, decorated with altar-pieces painted in the Venetian style.
The high altar was commissioned by the Grimani family and it shows the Annunciation, which was painted by Giuseppe Porta-Salviati and restored in Zagreb in 1996 by the Croatian Conservation Institute. In the apse behind the high altar there is the reliquary dedicated to blessed Miroslav Bulešić, containing his priest gown with stains of his blood, which he was wearing in the moment of his martyrdom in Lanišće on 24th August 1947, a piece of wall plastering stained with his blood and coming from the parsonage in Lanišće, and the pillow that was put under his head when he was dying and which is also drenched in his blood.
The picture of the Mother of God with St. Sebastian and St. Rochus, painted by Palma il Giovane, enriches St. Victoria’s altar, which guards a casket containing the relics belonging to St. Victoria and other saints, brought here from Rome. Opposite to this altar, next to the place which was the tomb of blessed Miroslav Bulešić from 2003 to 2014, there is an altar with statue dedicated to the Mother of God and the Rosary.
The altar dedicated to St. Anthony and Infant Jesus is probably a work of art by a local 18th century painter. The altar of the Holy Cross is particularly nice and interesting: once the Blessed Sacrament used to be kept in its relief.
The organ above the main entrance was built at the beginning of the 20th century by the Viennese J. M. Kaufmann.
After his beatification held at the amphitheatre in Pula on 28th September 2013, in 2014 his relics were solemnly moved from the tomb next to the altar of the Mother of God and the Rosary to a sarcophagus in a newly blessed stone altar located in the middle of the church: this process took place on 25th October, the date on which back in 1942 Miroslav Bulešić was ordained deacon in this very church.
St. Catherine
On the east gate to the town there is a little church dedicated to St. Catherine. It is a nice example of folk Romanesque style in Istria – it dates from the 14th century, and its frescos go back to the early 15th century.
The Church of St. Vincent
The Church of St. Vincent – used to be the abbey and parish church, dates from the 12th century. It is one-aisled and its interior is decorated with three layers of wall frescos among which the most extensive is the Istrian cycle of Romanic frescos under Byzantine influence dating from the late 13th century, painted by Ognobenus Trevisanus. Thy youngest, third layer goes back to the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century and comprises two restored paintings of the Apostles and fragmented altar painting on the north wall with the figure of a woman saint and the donor. The frescos show biblical scenes (the sacrifice of Abel, the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Crucifixion…), calendar (illustrations of activities according to months) and scenes from the lives of saints (mostly from the life of St. Vincent).
St. Anthony the Abbot
Just by the square, there is the little Church of St. Anthony the Abbot, a church of irregular ground-plan with a preslica bell tower. It belongs to Gothic folk architecture. There is a wooden statue of the saint inside, the work of a domestic sculptor from the 14th century.
St. Roch
The Church of St. Roch from 1622 is located in the north-west part of Svetvinčenat and represents medieval Istrian architecture.
Outside the town
Outside the town, there are three interesting one-aisled churches with loggias. The one dedicated to St. German from the 16th century is in village Rezanci. St. Mary of the Tripoint, also from the 16th century, is located near village Boškari, and the Church of St. Quirinus in the place called Kirin.
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