Romfilatelia announces the Resurrection of the Lord with a new postage stamps issue entitled Holy Easter 2023, which will be introduced into circulation on Friday, 10 March. The issue consists of 2 stamps with the same face value of Lei 2.90, illustrating “The Entry of the Lord Jesus Christ into Jerusalem” and “The Crucifixion” and a perforated souvenir sheet which contains the stamp with the face value of Lei 34 depicting the image of the icon of the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the graphic composition of the souvenir sheet it is reproduced the image of the icon “Last Supper”. A special silver stamp product will be available for collectors.
Easter is the most beautiful and meaningful religious celebration for all Christians. Because the Mass on Resurrection night shows us that “All is light: Sky, earth and hell”. Which means that darkness does not have an existence in itself, but is rather, as theologians explain, a resistance, an opposition that arises when light is revealed to us, a darkness that Christ shatters, “trampling down death by death”. This is why the Holy Apostle Paul wonders in his first letter to the Corinthians: “O death, where is thy victory?”.
It is sin, which is the darkness in man, the dark part of the heart, that leads him away from God. It, sin, results from man’s freedom to choose, but it also bears witness to man’s freedom to love God. How? By loving our fellowmen, by being fair, by forgiving, by giving of ourselves, by climbing out of the abyss of the abyss of this world to “imitate” Christ, who never ceased to be God, becoming man and offering the joy of the Resurrection to all creation. His message is not crucifixion, but Resurrection: “It’s the night of the Resurrection. The being is startled;/ Frankincense is in the woods and myrrh in the gardens, / To the great wonder nature rises / With herbs and trees changed into lights. / A bell tolls, the others answer,/ Surges rolling in the ether, / The high silences fill with a roar/ And the soul of the world rises to heaven”, wrote Radu Gyr, revealing the meaning of the holy night.
Easter is the promise of redemption, it is the moment when hope becomes certainty, it is the sign that the promise has been fulfilled, the Word has become flesh in order that man may become god, a partaker, a witness of the triumph of the Light: “Smooth light, smooth lights / Rising from great groves of lilies / Smooth light, nest of wax / Hollows with millennial honey / Coming from beyond the worlds / And never resting / A dawn that never ends / Smooth light from smooth light / Who waits for you loves you / Loving you is hoping / That one day you, smooth light, / Shall fully rise to us […] / Smooth light, cure wedding / Healing age after age / The sorrowful and impoverished / The weeping and the aggrieved / And the thirsty pilgrim / In your hearth they have spent the night / Smooth light, divine cure / Crowning the stranger / Above the faint earth / Smooth light, holy Logos”, added also Ioan Alexandru, with the joy of one who no longer belongs to himself.
Romfilatelia wishes you that the joy of the Resurrection enter in your house and soul, and your life be blessed with the Holy Trinity! May your greetings resound on this Holy Celebration, in the consecrated formula: Christ is Risen! Indeed, He is Risen!
Romfilatelia thanks Father Archimandrite Benedict Sauciuc, Abbot of Neamț Monastery, for his documentary and photographic support granted in the development of this postage stamps issue and for his blessing.
The special silver stamp product, created in a limited run printing of 201 pieces, reunites, in an original graphic presentation, a collectible philatelic block numbered from 001 to 201, with two imperforated stamps and the reproduction of the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ icon, together with the silver moulded replica of the postage stamp of the souvenir sheet of the issue Holy Easter 2023 and the Certificate of Authenticity issued by the State Mint, numbered from 001 to 201. The icons reproduced on the postage stamps of the Holy Easter 2023 issue are part of the heritage of the Neamț Monastery.
