VATICAN CITY — The Vatican has issued a new stamp dedicated to the fourth anniversary of the Pope Francis’ visit to Armenia. The Holy See has thus joined the UN’s initiative, which has declared 2020 as the International Year of Plant Health (IYPH), the Armenian Embassy to the Holy See reports.
The stamp depicts Pope Francis and His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, watering the symbolic vine planted in Noah’s Ark, thus confirming that the theme of plant and earth health is a spiritual value.
Pope Francis visited Armenia in June 2016. In 2017 the Vatican issued stamps dedicated to the Pope’s “Visit to the First Christian Nation.”
Designed by Daniela Longo, the stamps depicted Pope Francis in front of the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan.
Pope Franics visited the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial on June 25, 2016. Within the framework of a three-day visit to Armenia Pope Francis denounced the “ideologically twisted, planned genocide of Armenians starting in 1915.”