2 euro Vatican City 2008, The Year of St. Paul – the 2000th anniversary of his birth






€2 commemorative coins - Vatican City 2008, Year of Saint Paul the Apostle. 


Commemorative 2 euro coins from Vatican City


Description: The inner part of the coin depicts the conversion of Saint Paul on the road to Damascus (with the city visible in the background); the saint, dazzled by a light from the sky, falls from his rearing horse. Two inscriptions are engraved around the portrait: on the left side, an inscription denoting the issuing country CITTÀ DEL VATICANO; on the right side, the legend ANNO SANCTO PAULO DICATO. The year mark is inscribed to the right of the portrait, as well as the mintmark R and the artist's name VEROI. Beneath the portrait are the initials of the engraver Luciana De Simoni, L.D.S. INC.. The twelve stars of the European Union surround the design on the outer ring of the coin.



Reverse: left from the coin centre face value: 2, on the right inscription: EURO; in the background of the inscription a map of Europe; in the background of the map vertically six parallel lines ending on both sides with five-pointed stars (the reverse is common for all euro coins)

Issuing volume: 100,000 coins
Date of issue:   5 September 2008
Face value:      2 euro
Diameter:        25.75 mm
Thickness:       2.2 mm
Weight:           8.5 gr
Composition: BiAlloy (Nk/Ng), ring Cupronickel (75% copper - 25% nickel clad on nickel core), center Nickel brass
Design: Prof. Guido Veroi is credited with the design and Luciana De Simoni is credited as the engraver for the Vatican 2008 €2 Euro Commemorative coin.
Designer/ Engraver Inscriptions: Last name of the designer - 'VEROI'
Initials of the engraver - 'L.D.S. INC.' (INC. is the Italian abbreviation for 'engraver')
€2 Edge Inscription: The Vatican €2 coin edge inscription is '2', followed by one star, repeated six times alternately upright and inverted:
Mint Location: Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato (IPZS) (State Printing Office and Mint), in Rome, Italy.
Mint Marks: Mintmark of the Rome mint: the letter 'R'. Located at the lower right, inner circle.
National Identification: Text: 'CITTÀ DEL VATICANO'; Local long form of Vatican City.

Paul the Apostle
Paul the Apostle (Greek: Παῦλος Paulos; c. 5 – c. 67), original name Saul of Tarsus (Greek: Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς Saulos Tarseus), was an apostle (though not one of the Twelve Apostles) who taught the gospel of Christ to the first-century world. He is generally considered one of the most important figures of the Apostolic Age. In the mid-30s to the mid-50s, he founded several churches in Asia Minor and Europe. Paul used his status as both a Jew and a Roman citizen to advantage in his ministry to both Jewish and Roman audiences.

Fourteen of the twenty-seven books in the New Testament have traditionally been attributed to Paul, and approximately half of the Acts of the Apostles deals with Paul's life and works. Seven of the epistles are undisputed by scholars as being authentic, with varying degrees of argument about the remainder. The Pauline authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews, already doubted in the 2nd and 3rd centuries but almost unquestioningly accepted from the 5th to the 16th centuries, is now almost universally rejected by scholars. The other six are believed by some scholars to have come from followers writing in his name, using material from Paul's surviving letters and letters written by him that no longer survive. Other scholars argue that the idea of a pseudonymous author for the disputed epistles raises many problems.

Today, his epistles continue to be vital roots of the theology, worship, and pastoral life in the Roman and Protestant traditions of the West, as well as the Orthodox traditions of the East. Among the many other apostles and missionaries involved in the spread of the Christian faith, his influence on Christian thought and practice has been characterized as being as "profound as it is pervasive". Augustine of Hippo developed Paul's idea that salvation is based on faith and not "works of the law". Martin Luther's interpretation of Paul's writings heavily influenced Luther's doctrine of sola fide.