EXHIBITION OF VUKOVAR FRANCISCAN MONASTERY'S HERITAGE OPENED IN ZA

ZA $ GREB ZAGREB, Nov 17 (Hina) - An exhibition called "Franciscan Monastery and Church of St. Philip and Jacob - Heritage and Reconstruction" was opened on Sunday at Jesuits' Square in Zagreb. The exhibition was ceremonially opened by Croatia's Culture Minister Bozo Biskupic. Saved and restored paintings from the Monastery and Church of St. Philip and Jacob in Vukovar have been for the first time showed to the public at this exhibition. Director of the Vukovar Museum in exile, Ruzica Maric, said the paintings represented a symbol of revived spirituality and the beginning of restoration of war-torn Vukovar heritage, being an incentive to the faith in the return. Besides restored altar paintings, documents about the life of the monastery are also exhibited. Documents are divided into three parts showing three phases of the monastery's life - the history of friars in the Vukovar area, the 100-day-long war and suffering in 1991, and the protection and restoration of the heritage. The exhibition was the result of five-year-long cooperation between the Vukovar town museum in exile, the Vukovar Franciscan Monastery and the Zagreb restoration and conservation institute. Minister Biskupic said he was confident that this exhibition was a step closer for everybody to the common goal, "the return to the Croatian town of Vukovar." He said that the ruined Vukovar would be revived by "recovered energy of love and history a part of which is today presented." He added that the exhibition is one of projects which, supported by UNESCO, guarantee revival of cultural values of the eastern Croatian town. The Monastery's guardian Friar Branimir Kosec, who helped much to save a part of cultural heritage of Vukovar, voiced special pleasure with the exhibition. 171501 MET nov 96