PHILATELIC FEATURES

Miraculous icon of Volyn depicted on first day cover

The miraculous icon of the Mother of God of Volyn (late 13th/early 14th century) - one of the most famous in Ukraine - is depicted on the first day cover issued on December 12, 2000, in Vienna by the Ukrainian Stamp Collectors Club of Austria. Originally, the icon was brought to the Lutsk Castle by Prince Danylo of Halych (whose tower can be seen on the cover in the background). Today the icon is on view in the State Museum of Ukrainian Art in Kyiv. The special Christmas cancellation is bilingual (German-Ukrainian) and reads: "Christus ist geboren!/Khrystos Narodyvsia!" The design of the first day cover is by Ivan Turetskyi of Lviv.

Postal release depicts Mother of God of Zarvanytsia

On the occasion of the first day of issue of the first stamp in the ninth set of the Austrian stamp series "National Customs and Folkloristic Treasures," on March 19, 1999, the Ukrainian Stamp Collectors Club of Austria presented an official first day cover and a special cancellation. The information on the cover notes: "Today once again thousands of pilgrims are coming to the miraculous icon of the Holy Virgin of Zarvanytsia in western Ukraine to pray for consolation and mercy. The first written mention of the icon dates to the year 1458. The picture of the Holy Virgin was kept in a chapel near a bubbling spring. During the Communist regime of the Bolsheviks the chapel was blown up in 1960. In 1991, however, the chapel in Zarvanytsia was restored, in which the icon has found its place and the spring was reopened." The first day cover features art work by Ivan Turetskyi of Lviv; layout is by Erhard Steinhagen of Vienna.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, January 7, 2001, No. 1, Vol. LXIX

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