Explore Slovene Museum of Christianity

Throughout the millennia, plants have shaped civilisations that have learned and continue to understand in each location how to take advantage of what the earth provides - fruit for food, wood for warmth and for cooking food, fibres for comfort, remedies to cure. However, due to their beauty and the inherent tranquility and peace they inspire, plants are also indispensable to their wellbeing.

Their annual cycles and “enigmatic” renewal linked to the seasons, involving the germination of seeds, the unfolding of leaves or the transformation of flowers into fruit, have contributed to the sacred properties and special powers attributed to them. Also, their forms, whether plant, leaf, flowers or fruits and seeds, and their fragrances have given rise to many species being regarded as symbols for different religions and beliefs.

This reverence has been handed down from generation to generation, reaching our current times. This is how plants are still associated with cultural and religious values that we use symbolically nowadays, sometimes without realising how far back their origin may be traced.

This exhibition, which stems from the book Biblical Plants in the Gardens of Belem – Lisbon (M.C. Duarte et al. 2023), which marked the visit of Pope Francis to WYD2023 in Lisbon, aims to reveal small stories that link plants to the sacred, making them symbols for a multiplicity of peoples and civilisations, religions and beliefs.

The roaming of this exhibition, now in the Slovene Museum of Christianity, reinforces the idea at the heart of his pontificate – fraternity among peoples and the ecological appeal to care for our planet.

We kindly invite you to join us at the opening on the 17th of May at 18.00 in the Slovene Museum of Christianity.

You can also visit the exhibition later on and discover the hidden or slightly forgotten diverse meanings of the plants around us.