Gomirje is the westernmost Serb Orthodox monastery in Croatia. It was built in the period of the first larger Serb settling in the villages of Gomirje, Vrbovsko and Moravice at the end of 16th and the beginning of the 17th century. The monastery is thought to have been founded in 1600. The monastery includes the church of Roždenije saint John the Baptist, built in 1719. In 1789, the monastery was devastated by fires and subsequently rebuilt in 1791.
During World War I, Austria-Hungary turned Gomirje Monastery into concentration camp for Serbian Orthodox priests from the Triune Kingdom and areas of Vojvodina. During the World War II, the Ustaše government of the Independent State of Croatia killed monastery monks and took all of the monastery's valuable possessions to Zagreb, while the complex itself was burned in 1943. The monastery was reopened in 1967.
References:The Church of St Donatus name refers to Donatus of Zadar, who began construction on this church in the 9th century and ended it on the northeastern part of the Roman forum. It is the largest Pre-Romanesque building in Croatia.
The beginning of the building of the church was placed to the second half of the 8th century, and it is supposed to have been completed in the 9th century. The Zadar bishop and diplomat Donat (8th and 9th centuries) is credited with the building of the church. He led the representations of the Dalmatian cities to Constantinople and Charles the Great, which is why this church bears slight resemblance to Charlemagne's court chapels, especially the one in Aachen, and also to the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. It belongs to the Pre-Romanesque architectural period.
The circular church, formerly domed, is 27 m high and is characterised by simplicity and technical primitivism.