Zadar, (IKA) – The international St. Anastasia Exhibition – A Bridge between the Christian East and West,” devoted to the holy martyrdom of Anastasia, the patron saint of the Zadar Archdiocese and the namesake of the Zadar cathedral, opened on Tuesday, October 10, in the Municipal Loggia and the church of St. Donatus in Zadar. The exhibition is under the sponsorship of UNESCO and part of the international project entitled “Art for Peace in Europe and the World.” The author of the project is Pierre Tchakhotine of Italy, a pastelist painter and chairman of the St. Anastasia Promotion Committee. The exhibition,with 233 artistic works by 193 artists from 14 countries of the world, is being presented in Zadar, following exhibitions in Yaroslavl in Russia and Srijemska Mitrovica in Serbia. For the Zadar exhibition only, approximately two dozen new works were painted by Croatian artists, primarily from Zadar, which are being exhibited in the Municipal Loggia. There is also an exhibition of photographic documentation of churches, reliquaries, altars, cities, places, streets and squares in the world that bear the name of St. Anastasia or are connected with her in some way, and maps of Europe and the world indicating places where Anastasia is venerated.

In addition to a crowd of interested local people, the formal opening ceremonies were attended by numerous distinguished figures from all areas of public life and members of the International Anastasia Project. The chancellor of the Zadar Archdiocese, Josip Lenkić, read a letter from Pope Benedict XVI, signed by Archbishop Leonardo Sandri from the State Secretariat of the Holy See. The Holy Father expressed the wish that this praiseworthy ecumenical initiative, centered upon an exceptional and authentic witness to faith and love who has inspired the entire Christian world to holiness for seventeen centuries, will contribute to the coming together and unity of all who believe in Christ. He congratulated those who had promoted this significant event and invoked God’s blessing upon all.

The exhibition was opened by Archbishop Ivan Prenđa of Zadar, who pointed out that Anastasia is actual and relevant. “Anastasia, a name that means “resurrection” in New Testament Greek, is resurrected today in consciousness and creativity with the beauty and strength of her life, ideals and the compelling testimony of martyrdom, resurrected with the message that up to today has shone with the values that persons in every age have recognized as eternal, universally human and cosmic,” said Archbishop Prenđa, describing this saint who was born a Roman but was European in terms of the horizons of her activity and a Christian by conviction. She was active in Rome, L’Aquila, on the coast of the Northern Adriatic and Pannonia, where she was burned at the stake in Sirmium in the year 304. Her remains were brought to Constantinople. In the 9th century, Bishop Donatus brought them to Zadar, having received them as a reward from the Byzantine emperor Nicephorus in Constantinople for negotiating the peace between Nicephorus and the Frankish king Charlemagne. This act, therefore, justifies the title of the exhibition, which presents Anastasia as a bridge between the East and the West, which she achieved with her life, from her birth to her martyr’s death.

“Her message has surpassed time and space, reaching the cosmos. Her cathedrals, churches, chapels and holy images are everywhere: from the Bering Strait to the Atlantic, from the Northern Volga to the shores of Greece and Sicily. In the center of this crossroads of the north and south, is Zadar, which with love and pride has guarded her reliquaries in its cathedral for 1,200 years and venerates her as its patron saint,” stated Archbishop Prenđa. “Being burned at the stake on Christmas Day, with the name Anastasia, i.e. the Resurrection, summarizes the two greatest mysteries of Christian faith, the Incarnation and the Resurrection, with a life in which Jesus’ doctrine was lived decisively. She is the symbol of Christian civilization because she sprang from the heritage of the one and indivisible Christian Church of the first millennium,” said the archbishop, emphasizing that her efforts on behalf of the rights of the downtrodden, imprisoned and persecuted, based upon her convictions, at the time of the reign of the emperor Diocletian, show her to be a figure who by her martyr’s death sowed the seeds of a better new world “for which we strive today, often with suffering.” Her cult is alive in many nations and parts of Europe. For centuries, with her ideals and message, it has quietly, in the spiritual and cultural sense, worked to create a united Europe, said Archbishop Prenđa, calling the exhibition a rare cultural, public, ecumenical and religious event, a confirmation of how faith and culture permeate each other and build a person#!s spirit and awareness. He expressed the desire that the spirit of Anastasia, who speaks to us through her images, will provide incentive for growth in the values which the golden thread of the civilization of love has inspired. “It is with pride that we regard our Christian roots. We are building bridges of love, understanding and peace, as this saint did, in order for our, as they say, tired old Europe and our long-suffering lands, to be revived with new élan and youthful ideals of good and peace,” concluded Archbishop Prenđa. He also received greetings from Archbishop Salvatore Gristina of Catania, Sicily, where St. Anastasia is particularly venerated; and Orthodox Bishop Alexander, metropolitan of the city of Kostroma, Russia, where the cathedral is dedicated to Anastasia.

At the opening of exhibition at the Municipal Loggia, those present were also addressed by the deputy mayor of Zadar, Rade Škarica, and the county prefect of Zadar, Ivo Grbić. Surrounded by numerous paintings and sculptures, the mainstay of the exhibition consisted of two icons, Eastern and Western, by Nadia Lavrova and Nikolai Gaverdovski, and was blessed two times by Pope John Paul II, who also held them in his hands. They were also blessed by Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexis II, Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Pavle, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomaios I of Constantinople, and in 1995/96 flew in the cosmos in the Russian space station Mir, as part of the mission “Saint Anastasia – A Hope for Peace,” to further the reconciliation of the peoples of South Eastern Europe. The initiative was supported by the chairman of the Pontifical Council for Culture, Cardinal Paul Poupard, as well as the general secretaries of the European Union and UNESCO. Because there are churches dedicated to St. Anastasia in Biograd and on the island of Olib, two girls from these parishes carried the icons through the town from the Municipal Loggia to the Church of St. Donatus.

The second part of the formal opening ceremonies was held in the Church of St. Donatus, where those assembled were addressed by, among others, the author of the international project “St. Anastasia – Art for Peace in Europe and the World,” the organizer of the exhibition, the painter Pierre Tchakhotine; the deputy minister of culture, Branka Šulc; the president of the Organizing Committee of the Zadar Exhibition and the general vicar of the Zadar Diocese, Archbishop Ivan Mustač; the representative of the Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Dalmatia and Bishop Fotije, the Rev. Petar Jovanović; the representative of the Italian Piemonte Region, Enzo Carnazzo; the deputy ambassador of the Russian Federation to the Republic of Croatia, Boris Medvedev; Angelo Zampetti of the General Consulate of Italy in Split; and the emissary of the mayor of Mondovia, Livio Attanasio. The opening ceremonies were concluded with a concert in the cathedral of St. Anastasia, where the cathedral choir, conducted by Žan Morović and accompanied on the organ by Dragan Pejić, performed ten sacral and liturgical works from the Western and Eastern Christian traditions which celebrate St. Anastasia.

A painting of St. Anastasia by an Italian woman artist was presented as a gift to the cathedral of Zadar and will enrich the cult of the veneration of this martyred saint from early Christian times. The exhibition was also enhanced by the works of children from Zadar, depicting the patron saint of their archdiocese and the namesake of their cathedral.