Saint Domnius Cathedral in Split

Readers may be familiar with the three types of irony: verbal, situational, and dramatic. The history of Saint Domnius Cathedral in Diocletian’s Palace in Split, Croatia, is full of the second kind.

Diocletian, who ruled the Roman Empire from 284-305 AD, was the last emperor systematically to persecute Christians. During this “Great Persecution,” he was responsible for the death of as many as 3,500 souls who refused to sacrifice to the Roman gods.

Diocletian was devout in his own way, at least to judge by the palace he constructed for his retirement. This vast 7.5 acre structure, now in the heart of Split, included three temples and a mausoleum.  Diocletian, of course, intended the mausoleum to house his remains in perpetuity. Well, things don’t always turn out as expected.

Saint Domnius, the bishop of Salona, a place just north of the current city of Split, was beheaded under Diocletian’s orders in the amphitheatre of Salona in 304.  Also martyred in the same year was St. Lucy of Syracuse. The Roman Empire, of course, later adopted Christianity as its official religion in 380, a development that would not have pleased Diocletian. 

He would have been even less pleased to learn that someone—no doubt with a keen sense of humour—decided in the seventh century that the mausoleum could be put to better use and so turned it into a place of Christian worship. This eventually became the Cathedral of Saint Domnius, which is now the oldest functioning Cathedral in Christendom still in its (mostly) original form.

When the mausoleum was converted to Christian use, Diocletian’s sarcophagus was ritually destroyed.  No one knows what happened to his remains. We do know, however, what happened to Saint Domnius’s (or at least some of them), for they now rest on the first floor of the sacristy in the Cathedral treasury.  What of St. Lucy?  Well, though her remains rest elsewhere, the crypt below the cathedral (once housing the sarcophagus) has been dedicated to her.  Funny how things turn out.

So much for the situational irony.  If there is any dramatic irony involved, we must imagine an audience not limited to our temporal perspective. I find the exercise instructive.