2009Christmas - Special Folder

“The beginning and the end of salvation is love.”

(St. Anthony the Great)

As Romfilatelia has taught you every year, on Christmas, introduces into circulation a postage stamp issue dedicated to the Celebration of Lord´s Birth.

The postage stamp issue Christmas 2009 illustrates the image of the icon of Lord´s Birth from Buna Vestire Church - St. Anthony the Great - “Old Court” - Bucharest.

Built at the premises of the former Princely Court, Buna Vestire Church – St. Anthony the Great - “Old Court” is the oldest religious edifice of Bucharest preserved to these days. It was built at the end of the second reign of Mircea Ciobanu around the year 1559, as they say in the lettering put by Stefan Cantacuzino in 1715, above the entrance or that “it was built from the ground by the old prince Mircea.”

The dedication day, Buna Vestire, of the Church, was given by Mircea Ciobanu, and after the fire of 1847, the Church received its second dedication day, Saint Anthony the Great.

Saint Father Anthony was born in Come, in Egypt, in 251. His parents, prosperous Christian peasants, died when he was 18 years old. Hearing in the church the word of the Gospel, he gave his fortune to the poor and he secluded himself from society.

For 20 years, between 285 and 306, he settled down in a deserted fortress on the right bank of the Nile. After this ascesis period, he became the spiritual father of many monks from different monastic areas of the Egypt deserts, the most famous ones being Nitria and Schitia.

Around 312, he settled down on Kolzim (Qolzum) mountain, close to the Red Sea border where a monastery was built.

Until his death, in 356, he did not leave this place except to meet his disciples and to make a journey to Alexandria to support Saint Atanasie the Great, his disciple, in the defense of orthodoxy. The latter, after St. Anthony´s death, wrote the book “Anthony´s life”, a text that would become one of the fundamental papers of the monastic literature, both in the Orient and the Occident.

Philatelic document – created into a limited run printing of 350 copies, equipped with the postage stamp of the issue, numbered and cancelled with the “first day” post mark.

Philatelic folder – created into a limited run printing of 1,000 copies, containing one “first day” cover equipped with the postage stamp numbered and cancelled with “the first day” post mark, having in addition imprinted in gold foiling, “the first day” post mark of the issue, the block of 4 pcs. + 1 label numbered in red, having applied in gold foiling “the first day” post mark of the issue and “the Magi Star”, the minisheet of 8 pcs. + 1 label having the central label framed in gold foiling and one maxicard.