Latvijas Pasts issues a new postage stamp and a cover dedicated to one of the oldest Latvian cultural and historical monuments – the parchment manuscript of the Gospel of Jersika dating back to 1270. The visual design of the philatelic releases features an image of the Lord’s Transfiguration Church in Jersika, as well as reproductions of illustrations and manuscripts from the 2014 facsimile edition of the Gospel of Jersika.
To mark the 750th anniversary of the Gospel of Jersika, Latvijas Pasts releases a new stamp with a print run of 50,000 copies, accompanied by a special cover with a print run of 1,000 copies. The face value of the stamp is € 1.00, which corresponds to the postage of letter-post items in the weight class up to 20 grams within Latvia. The visual design of the philatelic releases created by the artist Lilija Dinere is based on the image of the Lord’s Transfiguration Church in Jersika, as well as reproductions of illustrations and manuscripts from the 2014 facsimile edition of the Gospel of Jersika. The Gospel of Jersika, also called the Latvian Gospel, is one of the oldest Latvian cultural and historical monuments, which belongs to both Latvian and Russian cultures. This medieval manuscript, completed on the 23rd of March 1270, was created in ancient Russian by the book rewriter Jurģis (Georgy). The personality and talent of the book rewriter Jurģis were shaped in ancient Jersika, a legendary town on the banks of the River Daugava, which has been mentioned many times in historical sources and was not only an important centre of crafts and trade, but also a centre of spiritual culture.
Today the ancient manuscript is held among the rarities in the Rumyantsev Collection of the Russian State Library, which once belonged to the prominent patron Count Nikolay Rumyantsev. In 2014 the Latvian Orthodox Church published the world’s first facsimile edition of the Latvian Gospel.
