Kvarantore - Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

Sa？etak The Forty hours’ adoration (kvarantore, deriving from Italian words quaranta ore i.e. forty hours, Latin Adoratio quadraginta horarum) means ritual of public reverence of the Most Holy Sacrament, especially in the days from Palm Sunday to the Wednesday of the Holy Week. Nowdays kvarantore are preserved in its original form only in few parishes and have been kept alive in the period between the two World Wars. Literature says that the beginning of the classic 40 hour adoration had first appeared in Milano between 1527 and 1537, while Venice had it first when promoted by Jesuits in 1584. However, it is often mentioned that Zadar is the place where the oldest registered 40 hour adoration was taking place. According to written documents, it existed there since 1214, and was being done during the last three days of the Holy Week in St. Silvester’s church. During the 17th c. the Venetian government issued several orders about this devotion which had been greatly popular in wartime dangers, calamities and pest. Most famous saints of the 40-hour adoration were st. Charles Boromeo and st. Philip Neri, who used to hold them the first Sunday of each month; Jesuits and Capuchins were ardent supporters of it. The golden age of the 40 hour adoration was the 17th and 18th c. Nowadays the ritual is going on in bigger places in Split-Makarska archbishopric, apart from the Split cathedral and Trogir cathedral also in Sinj, Metkovi？ and Ba？ka Voda. On Kor？ula it is preserved in Kor？ula, Blato and Vela Luka. Speaking of the islands of Hvar, Bra？ and Vis, kvarantore are mentioned in Hvar Cathedral in 1754 and had been, no doubt, introduced there much earlier. In Stari Grad it was introduced in the 18th c. and we know for sure that it was introduced in Vrboska in 1868, during the bishopric of Dubokovi？. Vrbanj has preserved it up to nowadays and is bound to the festivities of the Holy Spirit obsequious bowing and the parish church name. The classic schedule of the 40 hour adoration in front of the Holy Host was equal everywhere. Following the solemn mass on Palm Sunday, the kvarantore were beginning by a procession with the Holy Host and the first hour of the adoration was beginning at noon. At 7 p.m. there was common hour (Hora Communis ) which closed the bowing of the day. On Monday and Tuesday of the Holy Week, The Holy Host was exposed and at 7 p.m. the common hour would take place. On Wednesday of the Holy Week it is exposed at 5 or 6 o'clock a.m. and all-inclusive by adoration ends by a solemn mass and procession so as to repose the Holy Host at about noon.