High in the mountains of Bosnia, medieval tombstones carved with crosses and strange motifs still stand in silence. For centuries they have been linked to a church unlike any other in Europe, remembered simply as the Bosnian Church. To outsiders it was a heresy. To Bosnians it was a faith of their own, rooted in the land and in the rhythms of everyday life. The clergy of this church lived humbly among the people, far removed from the grandeur of Rome or Constantinople. They mediated disputes, read scripture, and observed the sacraments, yet they refused subordination to distant hierarchies. This independence was enough to earn them suspicion, crusades, and condemnation. What survives suggests not a rebellion against Christianity, but a local tradition that was both recognizably Christian and distinctly Bosnian.

