Through the centuries

The origins of the parish of Slovenska Bistrica reach back to the time of intensified medieval colonisation and the development of ecclesiastical organisation between Pohorje and the Drava plain. It was originally part of the great mother parish of Slivnica, from which it was carved out as a vicariate before 1249 — the year in which the Slivnica parish was incorporated into the Dominican women's monastery at Studenice. Already in the 1249 charter, Slovenska Bistrica is named among its vicariates, and at the latest in the first half of the 13th century a church dedicated to St. Bartholomew already stood here.

The development of the church was closely tied to the founding and growth of the market town — later the town of Slovenska Bistrica — first mentioned in the sources in 1227. A favourable position on the trade routes and the economic flowering of the region drove the rapid expansion of the settlement and the standing of the church of St. Bartholomew. As early as 1252 the records mention the Bistrica parish priest Henrik (Henricus de Vistriz), indicating that the church had by then become the seat of an important vicariate or a young parish. In the second half of the 13th or the beginning of the 14th century the vicariate matured into an independent parish.

The parish originally belonged to the Patriarchate of Aquileia; after its dissolution in 1751 it came under the Archdiocese of Gorizia, and from 1787 it was part of the Diocese of Lavant, whose see was transferred to Maribor in 1859. Today it belongs to the Archdiocese of Maribor.

In the 17th and 18th centuries the parish was served by the Minorite friars, settled in 1629 by the Bistrica magistrate alongside the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows. The Minorite monastery left a deep mark on the religious, cultural and medical life of the town until its dissolution in 1786 during the Josephine reforms.

A special place in the history of the parish belongs to the Sisters Franciscans of the Immaculate Conception, who came to Slovenska Bistrica in 1923 and were given quarters in the former Minorite monastery. In 1928 they founded the Yugoslav province, and since 1929 its seat has been in Slovenska Bistrica. Between the two world wars they ran an orphanage for around seventy children and contributed greatly to social and educational work. After the Second World War they were expelled from public institutions but kept the community alive. In 1970 they built a new convent in Slovenska Bistrica — today the seat of the Slovenian vicariate — and the community remains deeply engaged in the pastoral life of the town.