In the 15th and 16th centuries the people of Primošten were buried in the cemetery which was situated where the main town square Rudina is today. Funeral masses were served in the cemetery chapel, built in 1553, outside the settlement walls. The chapel was called the Church of Our Lady of Mercy. It was later enlarged and dedicated to Saint Rocco to whom the people vowed their devotion because he had saved them from the plague. A draw bridge was built to enable the inhabitants to get from the mainland, where the church was, to their homes on the island, hence the name Primošten from “pre- most- en”, meaning “connected by a bridge”. The bridge was in time replaced by a causeway.
The Church of Saint Rocco is a rural, single nave, longitudinal church, without apse, facing North –East. It has a bell gable and an added sacristy. It is situated in a park where cypresses and the fragrance of Mediterranean vegetation enrich this haven for the body and the soul. The Church of Saint Rocco is protected as immobile cultural property of the Republic of Croatia.
Statue of Father Ivo Šarić
During the Second World War, Primošten was under Italian occupation. In 1942, the Primošten Partizan Unit killed eighteen Italian telegraphers on the hill Jelinjak. This caused retaliation and on 16th November 1942 Primošten was bombed. The day before the bombing, an Italian officer gave the information about the planned attack to the parish priest Grgo Roglić and the chaplain Father Ivo Šarić. They warned the people and made them hide in the fields and in the church. Some inhabitants, among them women, children and the elderly, were taken to the park with machine-guns pointed at them, while adult men were taken to Pisak (part of causeway at the entrance into Old Town) to be shot. The parish priest Grgo Roglić and the chaplain Ivo Šarić begged the Italian commanding officer to spare the lives of the people and luckily they were set free. The people were released, but the commanding officer asked for a ransom to be paid for the men. Some men were taken to prisoner of war camps and several houses were burnt down and destroyed. Thanks to the efforts and the courage of the priest and the chaplain a much greater tragedy was prevented.
In 1991 the people of Primošten erected the monument to Father Ivo Šarić as a reminder of that incident. The statue is the work of the sculptor Ale Guberina and stands in front of the Church of Saint Rocco.
