The Willow Glen Resident

Photograph by Skye Dunlap

Antebellum: Most of the members of his congregation came to this country before the war in the former Yugoslavia started, says Father Dujo Boban.

Church preserves Croatian heritage with religion, dance

Glen institution is the only Croatian Catholic church in Bay Area, Father Boban says

By Michelle Ku

Each Sunday morning, the familiar strains of a Catholic Mass echo in the halls of Assumption of Mary church on Lincoln Avenue. But the Mass has an unexpected twist--it's performed in both English and Croatian.

Father Dujo Boban, who performs a 9 a.m. English Mass and an 11 a.m. Croatian Mass every Sunday, says Assumption of Mary is the only Croatian Catholic church in the Bay Area.

"The English Mass is attended by Americans who are living around the church and some Croatians who are better in English than Croatian," Boban says.

Both Masses are well attended, Boban says, but the Croatian Mass has a higher attendance of about 200 to 300 people each Sunday. About 100 congregants attend the English Mass.

The church, located at 901 Lincoln Ave. in the north end of Willow Glen, has been on the Avenue since 1975. It was founded by Peter Topich, a Franciscan father who used to hold services in the basement of St. Clare Church in Santa Clara before taking up permanent residence on Lincoln. Topich began the church in 1973.

"The late Father Topich, he could see that people didn't have any place to go [to church]," says Yelka Talaich, a Saratoga resident and original member of the Assumption of Mary congregation. "The people in San Francisco had a church, but people down here didn't. There was a need for that, a patch of our country, a touch of our land here."

The church has a congregation of close to 300 families, most of them Croatian. Members of the congregation come from throughout the Bay Area.

There used to be a Croatian church in San Francisco, but that church has incorporated the Polish and is no longer a strictly Croatian church--although it does still hold Croatian and Slovenian Masses once a month, Boban says.

"Most of the people are from San Jose," Boban says of his church. "But we have a good number from Pleasanton, Hayward, San Mateo, Redwood City, Sunnyvale and so on."

While the United States has been receiving many Croatian emigres in recent years because of the war in the former Yugoslavia, Boban says the membership of his church has not increased because of it. Members of the church's congregation have generally been in the United States for quite a few years.

"The people who come here have come here before [the war]," he says. "Many people who come in now are of mixed religions. They don't really go to church back in Croatia. When they come here, they do the same."

In addition to performing traditional Masses in Croatian, the church aims to preserve the history, language and culture of the country. The church also has a Croatian language and religion school for children, and a folk-dancing group.

"If you are an immigrant, you miss the country and the home," Talaich says. "You have a need to talk about it. So the church is something to satisfy the need. The church is also a social life in preserving the tradition, language and folk dancing. We are a very, very old people, an old nation proud of our heritage and roots. We are a small number of people, but have a rich culture."

Croatia was the first nation authorized by the Catholic church to hold Mass in its national language, both Boban and Talaich say. In 1928, the Bishop Convention decided to allow Croatians to hold services in their national language. It wasn't until the Second Vatican Council that other nations were allowed to hold religious services in their own tongues.

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