On 5 July 2020 at seventy years of age, fifty-seven years of religious life, and fifty years of the priesthood Fr. Stojan Ravić of the Croatian province of Saint Jerome died at the hospital in Zagreb. Fr. Stojan belonged to the Convent of Saint Francis in Odra, Zagreb. In his final years, he had health problems and had to be continually assisted.
Fr. Stojan was born into a large Croatian Catholic family on 8 October 1944 in Buhovo, Rasno parish, Herzegovina, to father Antonio and mother Stana, born Ćosić. He had three brothers and three sisters. He attended the first four years of primary school in the place of his birth and another four in Široki Brijeg. After elementary school, he entered the minor seminary of the Province in 1960. He attended high school in Zagreb and Zara. After the novitiate in Krk, he professed temporary vows in 1963. He studied in the department of Catholic Theology in Zagreb (1966-1972) and received his degree in theology from the department of theology at the University of Bochum in Germany. He made his solemn vows in 1971 in Zagreb, where he was ordained a priest in the same year.
He fulfilled well and responsibly his offices and positions, religious and pastoral, over two mandates. He was a missionary in the Croatian Catholic Mission in Gelsenkirchen in Germany (1972-1982) and parish priest in Martinšćica for four years, local minister in Split (19892-1993), Martinšćica (1993-2001) and Porat (2001-2013) and econome of the convent in Porat for eight years. In 2013, he was transferred to the Convent of Saint Francis in Rijeka because of health problems and in 2018 to the Convent of Saint Francis in Odra (Zagreb) that is connected with the home for the elderly (the institution of the Province) because he needed continuous assistance.
Fr. Stojan was a simple priest and brother, humble, benevolent and gentle. He worked and served diligently for the good of the convents in which he lived, for the Province, the Church and the people. He worked extensively for Parish Caritas in Split during the war in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the last decade of the century.
Fr. Ivo Martinović, Minister Provincial, presided over his funeral on July 8, assisted by Fr. Petar Bašić, vicar of the convent at Odra, and by Fr. Zvonimir Brusač, Provincial Secretary. The funeral was attended by the brother of Fr. Stojan and his family, his relatives and many brothers of the province as well as by some priests and religious and many of his friends and acquaintances. He was buried in the tomb of the friars in the central cemetery of the city of Zagreb.
The funeral Mass was presided by the Minister Provincial in the Hall of Bishop Srećko (Badurina), next to the conventual and parish church of Saint Francis Xavier in Zagreb (damaged in the earthquake).