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Finding church offices |
Here's how to find the phone numbers and addresses for church offices in Croatia using the Croatian on-line phone directory.
The Croatian on-line phone directory (in English) is located at:
http://www.tportal.hr/imenik/default.asp?lang=1
You will get a page that looks like this:
Click on the "Yellow Pages" tab and you will get a screen that looks like this:
Click on the green question mark button to the right of the ACTIVITY box and you will see a list of "activities." Scroll down to where it says: "Religious, social, humanitarian, and international organizations and institutions." Under that category you will see "Churches & Religious societies." Click on that and you will be presented with a window that looks like this, all filled out for you -- in English, yet:
If you click on "Search" in this window (shown above), you will be presented with some 1300 churches in Croatia because you would be searching "The Entire Croatia." To narrow the search you can change "The Entire Croatia" to, say, the Dubrovnik area (20) and then click "Search," and you will get the image below. (Here is a map showing the various area codes in Croatia. An area code corresponds to a county.) If you just type in a village name (and leave "The Entire Croatia" alone) you will get the church for that village (if the village has a church).
If there is a small + in a box to the right of the number (as most churches seem to have) then clicking on that box will result in the entire address including postal code. In this list, if you click on the plus next to #21 (the church in Cavtat) you will get this:
This is the name, address, and phone number of the church. See below for how to extract the address from this information.
Meanwhile if you click on the village, you will get a small map that tells you almost nothing. But to the left of the map you will see a slider scale which you can use to zoom in or out. You still must know some Croatian geography to find your way around these maps but they're better than nothing.
Extracting addresses from the given information
The image above says:
KATOLIC"KA CRKVA, Dubrovac"ka Biskupija
20210 Cavtat, Svetog Nikole 2
Z"upni ured Sv. Nikole.............. +385 (20) 478249
This means:
First line = Catholic Church, Dubrovnik Bishopric
20210 = postal code
Cavtat is the village
Svetog Nikole 2 is the street address
Z"upni ured = Church parish
The name of the church is "Sveti Nikola" = Saint Nicholas.
The phone number is on the right.
A letter to this church can be addressed like this:
Katolic"ka crkva [or Z"upni ured]
Svetog Nikole 2
HR-20210, Cavtat
Croatia, Europe
If the street address is not given, then the only address you need on the envelope is:
Katolic"ka crkva [or Z"upni ured]
[postal code] [city]
Croatia, Europe
Z" = Z with a small v over it; c" = c with a small v over it. (See here.)
It's a good idea to put "Europe" on the envelope when mailing from the States because many of their postal workers don't know exactly where Croatia is. So then they toss your letter into the "Africa" bag and it takes 6 weeks to get to Croatia. It's happened to me more than once. It's a good idea to put HR in front of the postal code -- this is the internationally recognized code for Croatia. HR stands for Hrvatska which is the Croatian name for Croatia (Croatia is the Romanized name for Croatia.)
For information on how to write to the churches, see here.
Phoning these churches is not a good idea unless you can speak Croatian.
If a city has more than one church, there is usually an address or name of church given in the on-line phone book to distinguish them.