Magyar Posta is marking the 700th anniversary of the canonisation of Saint Thomas Aquinas by issuing a commemorative stamp. Saint Thomas Aquinas was a theologian, a Dominican monk and the foremost thinker of medieval Christianity, who is still influential today. Forty thousand copies of the new issue designed by the graphic artist András Gábor Máté were produced by ANY Security Printing Company. The new stamp will be available at first day post offices and Filaposta in Hungary from 3 March 2023, but may also be ordered from Magyar Posta’s online store.
Saint Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225 – 1274) was educated in the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino. In 1244, he went to the Dominican monastery in Naples, where he asked to be received into the Order. In Paris, he lectured as a college teacher and was admitted to the magisterium, enabling him to continue teaching as a professor in public. In his academic lectures, he was praised mainly for his originality, openness and independence. He was entrusted with the direction of the College of the Order in Rome and also went to the papal Curia. In the meantime he worked tirelessly on his academic activities. In 1269, he was summoned again to the University of Paris as a professor of theology. He was later recalled by his Order and tasked with organising a central theological college in Naples. Two years later, in 1274, Pope Gregory X sent him to the Second Council of Lyon. He was seriously ill when he set off and died in a Cistercian monastery.
Pope John XXII canonised him in 1323 and, in the same year, the date of his death, 7 March, became his feast day. As this day usually falls in Lent, it has been celebrated since 1969 on 28 January, the day on which his relics were transferred to Toulouse in 1369. In 1880, Leo XIII made him patron saint of all Catholic educational activities. Source: jelesnapok.oszk.hu
The stamp commemorating Saint Thomas Aquinas features a painting by Sandro Botticelli, while the background printing shows a page from his work Summa Theologiae. On the front of the commemorative first day cover, a work by an unknown Baroque master entitled Saint Thomas Aquinas appears. The imprint of the special postmark on the commemorative first day cover uses a design reminiscent of a monstrance.
