Cardinal Vinko Puljic, Archbishop of Vrhbosna, Sarajevo, was born on 8 September 1945 in Prijecani, in the Diocese of Banja Luka. He completed his secondary education at the interdiocesan minor seminary of Zagreb and the minor seminary of Djakovo. He studied philosophy and theology at the major seminary of Djakovo and was ordained a priest in the Cathedral of Djakovo on 29 June 1970. Pope John Paul II appointed him Archbishop of Vrhbosna, Sarajevo on 19 November 1990 and in 1991 at the tomb of St Peter ordained him Bishop on the Solemnity of the Epiphany.

After his ordination to the priesthood, he became chaplain in Banja Luka, until spring 1973. Before moving to the parish of Sasina, where he stayed from June to November 1973, for three months, from April to June, he worked in the Episcopal Curia of Banja Luka. From 1973 to 1978 he was parish priest of Ravska, near the mine of Ljubija. In autumn 1978, he was named spiritual director of the minor seminary ‘Vicko Zmajevic’ of Zara.

When his work as spiritual director of the minor seminary of Zadar came to an end in summer 1987, he returned to his Diocese and was named parish priest of Bosanska Gradiška. He stayed there until summer 1990 when he was transferred to Sarajevo as vice- rector of the major seminary of the ecclesiastical province of Vrhbosna. On 19 November 1990, while he was in Sarajevo the news of his appointment as Archbishop reached him. He thus became the sixth Archbishop of that See after the reconstruction of the ordinary ecclesiastical hierarchy in 1881 in present-day Bosnia-Herzegovina, after the Turkish occupation which had lasted more than four centuries.

His pastoral ministry in the Archdiocese of Vrhbosna, Sarajevo began on 19 January 1991. In those months in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, as also in the rest of what used to be Yugoslavia and in other formerly communist countries, after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, there was a spell of freedom and democracy. As Archbishop, he immediately focused on making pastoral visits in the Diocese in order to become more familiar with the religious and social situation there.

In the situation created by the war, he immediately became involved in helping the thousands of refugees and exiles, mobilising all the forces of the Church and people of good will. In his tireless work of peacemaking, he met with many political figures and politicians, at home and abroad. In addition, to give a greater impulse to the commitment of religion for a just peace, he met more than once with the Orthodox and Muslim religious leaders of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

In April 1997, Cardinal Puljic welcomed John Paul II to Sarajevo; a pastoral visit the Holy Father had desired to make in September 1994 but was unable to due to the war.

Created and proclaimed Cardinal by John Paul II in the consistory of 26 November 1994. Titular church St. Clare in Vigna Clara.

Since 1995 until March 2002, he was the President of the Bishops’ Conference of Bosnia-Herzegovina.