Ivan Paskvali


Ivan Paskvali or Giovanni Pasquali was a Catholic missionary who was in charge for Catholicization of Orthodox Serbs, first in Dalmatia and then in Montenegro and Serbia.

Early life

Paskvali was a member of noble family from Kotor. Members of this family, who were nobility of Tvrtko I of Bosnia, came to Kotor in 15th century. Ivan Paskvali was born in 1586 and baptised on 22 May 1586. His father was Kristofor de Dominis, son of Grisogon, and his sister was Cecilia.

Missionary activities

On 18 August 1641 Paskvali, then a missionary in Dalmatia, reported that his everyday activities included visiting and converting Orthodox Serbs to Catholicism. After Leonardi's death, Paskvali succeeded him in his missionary duties in Montenegro and Serbia, which marked the beginning of large-scale planned activities on Catholicisation of the Orthodox population of this region.
In 1643 Paskvali reported that 7,000 "schismatic" and "heretic" Serbs live in Montenegro. On 1 December 1645 he wrote a letter to the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith and requested four or five Catholic priests to be sent to the coast of Montenegro populated with Orthodox Serbs, for religious conversion purposes. He recommended that those priests first learn to speak Serbian and write using Serbian Cyrillic script. On 5 August 1646 Paskvali wrote a letter to the Sacred Congregation and informed them that Kotor bishop Vićentije Buća convinced many people to accept Catholicism. On 29 April 1648 Paskvali reported from Grbalj that he had a lot of work due to the region being full of Serb newcomers who again applied for Venetian service.
Paskvali maintained a very good relation with Orthodox bishop Makarije. In February 1665 Makarije wrote to the Congregation, praised Paskvali and requested that the Congregation should support Paskvali with money and books. In August 1665 the Congregation responded positively to those requests and sent books and money to Paskvali.