About Živa zajednica

Živa zajednica

Živa zajednica (Living Community) is the online portal of the Croatian Catholic missions and communities in Germany, published from Frankfurt am Main. Bilingual in Croatian and German, it presents itself with the greeting "Dobro došli – Herzlich willkommen" and describes itself as the portal of the Croatian Catholic missions and communities in Germany. The portal is the digital extension of the magazine "Živa zajednica", the publication of the Croatian Catholic missions and communities in Germany, which has been published since September 1978 by the Croatian Pastoral Office (Hrvatski dušobrižnički ured) in Frankfurt am Main; the web portal itself was launched on 15 January 2018 at the Croatian Pastoral Office. For Croats living in Germany, one of the country's established Catholic diaspora communities, the portal serves as a shared information space: news from the missions and parishes, religious content, and the cultural life of the community, in the language of the homeland and the language of the host country.

Overview

Živa zajednica occupies a specific place in Germany's diaspora media landscape: it is the online home of a religious community rather than a general news outlet. The Croatian Catholic missions (hrvatske katoličke misije) are the parishes and pastoral centers that serve Croats across Germany, organized under the Croatian Pastoral Office in Frankfurt am Main, and their magazine "Živa zajednica" has connected these scattered communities in print since September 1978. The web portal, launched in January 2018, carries that mission into the digital era.

The portal's bilingual identity is central to its purpose. Croatian is the language of the faith community's heritage, the language in which the liturgy is celebrated in the missions and in which the older generation follows religious life. German is the language of the country the community lives in, the language of the younger generation and of communication with the German dioceses and institutions within which the Croatian missions operate. By publishing in both languages under the "Dobro došli – Herzlich willkommen" banner, the portal bridges the generations and the two cultural contexts of diaspora life.

The content follows the rhythms of the church year and the life of the missions. Religious content includes reflections on the faith, such as the portal's published meditations on the Holy Spirit and the Gospel readings, prayer resources, and materials for the liturgical seasons. Community news covers the missions and parishes: pastoral visits, confirmations and first communions, pilgrimages, parish festivals, choir and folklore activities, and the charitable work of the community. The portal also documents the institutional life of the Croatian Catholic presence in Germany, including cooperation with organizations such as Renovabis, the German Catholic solidarity initiative for Central and Eastern Europe, whose materials appear on the portal.

History

The history of Živa zajednica begins in September 1978, when the magazine of the same name started publication under the Croatian Pastoral Office in Frankfurt am Main. The late 1970s were the mature years of the Gastarbeiter era: hundreds of thousands of Croats, then citizens of Yugoslavia, lived and worked in West Germany, and the Catholic missions were among the most important institutions of their community life, alongside the workers' clubs and cultural associations. A magazine connecting the missions across the country answered a real need: it gave the scattered parishes a shared voice, reported on the life of the community, and provided religious formation in the Croatian language.

Over the following decades the magazine accompanied the community through profound changes: the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Croatian war of independence in the 1990s, which brought new waves of refugees and deepened the diaspora's connection to the homeland; the integration of the second and third generations into German society; and the gradual transformation of the missions themselves as the community aged and dispersed. Through all of this, "Živa zajednica" remained the printed link between the missions.

The launch of the web portal on 15 January 2018 at the Croatian Pastoral Office marked the publication's entry into the digital era, forty years after the magazine's founding. The portal did not replace the print magazine but extended it: news could now be published continuously, the missions could be presented with up-to-date information, and the bilingual format could reach both the Croatian-speaking faithful and the German-speaking public interested in the community. The WordPress-based site, hosted in Germany, became the daily face of a publication with a four-decade history.

Coverage and Content

The portal's content reflects the dual identity of its publisher: a religious community and a diaspora community. The religious coverage includes spiritual reflections, Gospel meditations, prayer and devotional materials, and resources for the liturgical year, such as the Renovabis Pentecost novena materials published on the site. These are not news in the conventional sense but the formative content of a faith community, meant for reading, reflection and parish use.

The community news covers the life of the Croatian Catholic missions across Germany: announcements and reports from the parishes, pastoral events, sacramental celebrations, pilgrimages to Croatian and European shrines, cultural programs of folklore groups and choirs, and the charitable and social initiatives of the missions. For Croats dispersed across the German dioceses, this coverage creates a sense of a single community: the reader in Munich learns what the mission in Hamburg is doing, and the parish festival in Stuttgart becomes part of a shared story.

The bilingual presentation shapes how this content works. Croatian-language items serve the faithful who live their religious life in Croatian; German-language items communicate with the younger generation, with German spouses and friends, and with the German church institutions that host the missions. The portal thus functions as an interface between the community and its environment, explaining the Croatian Catholic presence in Germany to the German public while nourishing the community's own identity.

Organization and Ownership

Živa zajednica is the publication of the Croatian Catholic missions and communities in Germany, issued by the Croatian Pastoral Office (Hrvatski dušobrižnički ured) in Frankfurt am Main. The print magazine has been published by the Pastoral Office since September 1978, and the web portal was launched at the Pastoral Office on 15 January 2018. The Frankfurt base places the operation at the institutional center of Croatian Catholic life in Germany.

Beyond these verified facts, the sources consulted for this profile do not disclose the names of current editors or the size of the editorial team, and this profile does not invent such details. As the organ of a church institution, the portal operates within the structures of the Croatian pastoral care in Germany rather than as an independent commercial medium, and its continuity over nearly five decades in print testifies to the institutional stability behind it.

Digital Presence

The website zivazajednica.de is the portal's digital home, a WordPress-based site hosted in Germany presenting the bilingual "Dobro došli – Herzlich willkommen" welcome. The site carries the portal's religious reflections, community news and institutional information, organized for a readership that visits for spiritual nourishment as much as for information. Indexed web directories categorize it under religion and global religious topics, confirming its identity as a faith-community portal.

For a publication that began in print in 1978, the website represents both continuity and adaptation: the same mission of connecting the Croatian Catholic missions in Germany, now pursued through daily-updatable web publishing alongside the magazine. For Croats in Germany, from the industrial cities of the Ruhr to the parishes of Bavaria, the portal offers a digital parish noticeboard and a spiritual companion in two languages. And for the German public, it presents the face of one of the country's long-established Catholic diaspora communities: welcome, in Croatian and in German.