700th Anniversary of the Virgin Mary's Sanctuary in Loreto

10 December 1994 - Commemorative Postage Stamp: 700th Anniversary of the Virgin Mary's Sanctuary in Loreto

Size: 42.60 x 35.50 mm
Paper: white, 90 g, adhesive
Comb perforation: 14
Value: 4.00 Kn
Printing house: Multicolour Offsetprint ZRINSKI d.d.
Issued: 350000

Motif: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo: "The Moving of the Holy House", 1737

The two sanctuaries of The Virgin Mary, Our Lord's Holy Mother, one in Trsat, Croatia, the other in Loreto, Italy, with their roots deep in the Christian tradition of worshiping the Virgin Mary, mark symbolically the spiritual heritage of Mary from Nazareth in Palestine, the homeland of Jesus.

The sanctuaries in Trsat and Loreto are closely connected through an old legend about the moving of the Holy House from Nazareth first to Trsat and later to Loreto. The first written records of the legend among the Croats can be found in Bartol Kasir's "Istoria loretana of the Virgin Mary's Holy House" (Rome, 1617) and in the chronicle of the Trsat sanctuary "Historia Tersettana" (Udine, 1648) written by the historian and scholar Franjo Glavinic.

According to both authors, the Holy House was moved from Nazareth to Trsat on 10 May 1291 and then to Loreto on 10 December 1294. These dates, taken as authentic, mark the beginning of two anniversaries. The 700th anniversary ot the sanctuary in Trsat was celebrated in May 1991.

The anniversary of Loreto is being celebrated this year (1994-1995). According to another legend, the sign of the mutual spiritual sphere of the sanctuaries in Trsat and in Loreto is the worshiping of the painting of the Virgin Mary, that was in 1367 given to the Croatian pilgrims in Loreto by the Pope Urban V. Since then, the painting in Trsat has been worshiped as The Mother of Grace or Our Lady of Trsat. Over the centuries, the sanctuary in Loreto has been a place of pilgrimage to the faithful from Croatia.

In the seventeenth cent. in Loreto was a renowned Croatian "Illyrian College" where many young people from all over Croatia were educated.

Source: The Croatian Post and Telecommunications, 1994