Colombon: The Central Bank of Sri Lanka issued a commemorative silver coin with a face value of 500 rupees to mark the visit of Pope Francis to Sri Lanka in recognition of the national importance of this event.
The coin was presented to Pope Francis and to and the President Maithripala Sirisena at the Presidential Secretariat in Colombo Tuesday (13th), reported colombopage.com.
On the obverse of the coin, in the middle, the bust of His Holiness Pope Francis is depicted surrounded by a ring of 33 honeysuckle flowers as portrayed in the traditional Sinhalese artistic style. Edge of the coin states the words ‘Papal Visit Sri Lanka’ and the dates of the visit, ’13-15 January 2015′, with the word ‘January’ in all three languages of Sinhala, Tamil and English.
On the reverse of the coin, the official logo for the Papal Visit to Sri Lanka 2015 is in the center. Below the logo is the face value of the coin ‘500’ in numerals with the word ‘Rupees’ in Sinhala, Tamil and English languages. The edge of the coin is decorated with a Liywela made out of 40 Na flowers, the national flower, 40×3 Na buds and 40×3 Na leaves and a circle of 120 dots.