The 65 cent 2007 Christmas stamp shows the birth of Christ depicted on an icon from the Church of St. Barbara in Vienna’s 1st District. Once the chapel of a Jesuit college, the church was transferred to the Greek-Catholic community in 1775 and is today a part of the complex of buildings that includes the Austrian Post Office headquarters. It serves as the main church for the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic community in Austria, and is an example of the centuries of links between Austria and the Greek-C ...
moreThe 65 cent 2007 Christmas stamp shows the birth of Christ depicted on an icon from the Church of St. Barbara in Vienna’s 1st District. Once the chapel of a Jesuit college, the church was transferred to the Greek-Catholic community in 1775 and is today a part of the complex of buildings that includes the Austrian Post Office headquarters. It serves as the main church for the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic community in Austria, and is an example of the centuries of links between Austria and the Greek-Catholic Church and the Ukraine. Prof. Svjatoslav Hordynskyj, a world-famous icon painter, repainted the images on the ceiling of the altar and the nave when the church was extensively renovated in 1983-1985. These icons are in the neo-byzantine style with Ukrainian elements.
The structure and symbolism of the icon of the Birth of Jesus on the left wall of the altar are entirely in the traditional style. The centre of the image is determined by the main aspect, God becoming man. We see the crib with the child, traditionally wrapped in swaddling clothes, placed in a cave in the rocks. Orthodox iconography presents the birth of Christ in a dark cave. This darkness, the realm of Satan and death, also contains the chosen people, represented by the ox and the donkey by the cradle. The star, announcing the presence of God, lightens up this darkness. The heavenly choir of angels is also at hand, while from the left the three wise men approach the child, led by an angel above them. Mary is lying in front of the cradle, resting and wrapped in a red cloak. Her hand is pointing to the divine child in the bottom right, who is being bathed in a sort of baptismal font. In the Eastern Church it is still the practice to immerse children completely at baptism. The woman carrying a jug of water is dressed in the Ukrainian tradition. Bottom left sits Joseph in a reflective pose, while a shepherd approaches with his herd, asking the way to Christ. The pomegranate tree in the middle in the foreground symbolises the presence of the church as ekklesia, the community of the faithful.
The icon embodies the theology and spirituality of the Eastern Church. It is a work of art by virtue of the divine truth that it incorporates. Icons are like windows into heaven, leading the faithful up to the invisible reality of heaven. They reveal God’s miracle, and encourage the viewer to search for truth and to find God.
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