He was speaking on the 70th anniversary of the National Liberation Army of Croatia First Corps, which was formed on 22 November 1942.
Maricic said a member of the Church recently said during service that the Partisans were criminals, which he said was "completely unacceptable."
Extending his congratulations on the anniversary, Parliament Speaker Josip Leko said that to deny the Croatian state's ties with the Croatian antifascist movement and the continuity of the Croatian people's freedom-loving was to deny the Croatian state.
He said the Croatian state was founded on antifascism, as written in the Constitution.
Leko said there was no democracy without antifascism and that the European Union was built on the foundations of antifascism with democratic values. "Defending the EU, we defend those values. We have reason to believe that our place was in the EU and in the antifascist coalition both in World War II and today."
Leko said the First Corps showed how much the creation of present-day democratic Croatia had depended on the Croatian people's support and commitment to the WWII antifascist movement and to its values today.
The anniversary was held under the auspices of Croatian President Ivo Josipovic.