The phrase "bulwark of Christianity" or "Latin" Antemurale christinaitis "accompanied Croats since 1519, and was unofficially used some 30-odd years earlier in a variety of informal and formal correspondence.

That title Pope Leo X gave on this day of the year to our Croatia in a letter to the Croatian Ban (Head of the State) and a hero in battles against the Turks, invincible Governor Petar BERISLAVIĆ. It was not the only title that has been given to this a country and a people, the same title given the Hungarians and Poles.

In fact, it was a time of intense pressure of the Turks in Dalmatia, when it seemed that the whole Croatian province could fall under Turkish rule, as it happened before with Bosnia.

Against the multiple stronger Turkish conquerors, Croats led the fiercest wars in the 16th and 17th centuries, which are called "duo plorantes saecula Croatiae" ("two Croatian weeping centuries"). Most of Defense was funded by the Austrian nobility (approximately above 95%), and defending the border did not take part only Croatian ethnic element, but also Germans, Hungarians, and ethnicity, which is usually in the historical documents called "Vlach" and whose members were of mainly (not exclusively) of the Orthodox religion.

During the nearly 400-year-long war against the Ottoman invaders were celebrated many names of known and unknown Croatian warriors and heroes. The most famous among them were: Zemun defender Marko Skoblic who by the Turks was tied and thrown under a mad elephant because he would not renounce Christ and become Turk, governor Peter Berislavić (1475.-1520.), who due to his the great victory at Dubica on the Una in the year 1513 received as the gift a blessed sword and hat from Pope Leo X, Senj captain Peter Kružić (1491 to 1537) who for 15 years defended surrounded Klis, chief captain Nikola Jurisic (1490.-1545.) who in 1532 with only 700 Croats stopped Suleiman's 140,000 soldiers in their military campaign to Vienna and defended strong city Kiseg, ban Nikola Subic Zrinski (1508-1566th), which in 1542 with 400 Croats saved Pest (now Budapest) from certain doom.

In 1566 Suleiman II. which started with more than 100,000 troops to conquer Vienna and then all of Europe, was stopped under Siget by Nikola Subic Zrinski who led 2500, mostly Croatian heroes, when more than 30,000 Turks were killed, and the defenders themselves because of their courage and heroic deaths "entered into the legend" of the world war and military history.

Not to mention from the rich Croatian history of the heroic victor of Sisak, Tom Erdödy, Ban Ivana III Draskovic ("Defensor of Croatia"), Ban Nikola Zrinski, Ban Petar Zrinski, Krsto Frankopan, Ban Petar Keglević, General Ivana Lenković and many other Croatian heroes who stopped the Turks to penetrate into Europe.

All of them have by their courage and faith deserved a recording in Croatian man today and always. By their actions they have completely justified venerable Croatian name and Croats as the "bulwark of Christianity".

So the defenders of Europe, of which the largest burden bore Hungarians and Croats, entered in history as those who have "The old continent" defended from the imperial Turks and enabled Europe to remain Christian and in the lap of Christian culture and environment experience its boom.

Source:

http://narod.hr/kultura/12-prosinca-1519-papa-leon-x-hrvatska-je-predzide-krscanstva

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IZAKOVIC