The Croatian State Archives (CSA), as a central national archival institution in Croatia, has an active role in perserving private archives within the framework of Croatian legislative. One of the most important type of private archives in Croatia are the archives of Roman Catholic Church, i.e. the (arch)dioecesan archives and the archives of the religious orders. The foundation of the protection was a special contract signed between The Zagreb Archidiocese and the CSA, more than a hundred years ago, in order to improve the protection of their archdiocesan archives. Since then, the scope of activities conducted by the Croatian State Archives expanded in several areas, such as: archival arrangement and description of archival holdings, making preservation copies, restoration of the most damaged items etc.

This proceeding will not only present the scope of activities, but also introduce the Croatian legal framework to protect private archives and discuss the challenges that we had to deal with while acting in this part of archival service.