Stamps on pilgrimage sites

 

Date of Issue : 1 June 2013

Croatian post Ltd. Mostar has issued a commemorative postage stamp on Medjugorje.

Medjugorje, a small village in Herzegovina, has become famous Marian shrine after six young people, on 25th June 1981, on the hill Crnica, on the place called Podbrdo; had an encounter with the woman who they had recognized as Our Lady. People from all over the world started coming on pilgrimage to the Queen of Peace and carry messages of Our Lady and call for peace, prayer, fasting and repentance.

Medjugorje, which was first mentioned in 1599, is today one of the most visited shrines of Our Lady. There are three special places in Medjugorje: the Apparition Hill, the parish church and Cross Mountain. Pilgrims gather to pray the Rosary on the Apparition Hill where the visionaries first testified about encounter with the Lady. The parish church of St. James, the patron of pilgrims, began to be built in 1937 and was finished in 1969.

Pilgrims gather daily in prayer in the church. On the Cross Mountain in 1934, the concrete cross high8 meterswas constructed in memory of the 1900th anniversary of Jesus’ death. In its intersection the Cross received form the Rome is embedded.

The Holy See, in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican has founded International investigation commission for Medjugorje in 2010. Commission members are cardinals, bishops and experts that will work in a confidential manner and the results of the study will be submitted to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

500 Years of the Pilgrimage Site of Maria Luggau stamp from Austria

Austrian post celebrates the 500^th anniversary of the pilgrimage site of Maria Luggau in Carinthian Lesachtal by issuing a special stamp block. Nowadays Maria Luggau is a town in the Austrian municipality of Lesachtal, which represents a scattered village with about 300 inhabitants. It was named after Maria, Magna Mater Austriae,  and has a church of XVI century, named after Saint Maria as well. This place attracts pilgrims for already 500 years.The stamp featuring Saint Maria is framed by a beautiful unusual perforation corresponding to the frame of the original icon.