A visibilidade das religiões nos selos postais comemorativos brasileiros do século XX/The visibility of religions in brazilian commemorative postage stamps in the XX century

This paper examines the way in which religions are pictured in brazilian commemorative postage stamps, contributing to the construction and maintenance of its representations. Was considered for this purpose the conception of this artifact as media and its close relation with the religious discourse. The sample is composed of brazilian commemorative postage stamps issued during the twentieth century. Its identification was made using the Rolf Herald Meyer (RHM) catalogue. Between 1900 and 2000, the brazilian post office issued 2.354 commemorative postage stamps. From the observation and identification of religious recurrences 222 samples were compiled. The study correlated the recurring religious theme with brazilian historical context, considering the decline of catholicism as the major religion in the country and with the representation of religions in the media, using quantitative data. The finding indicates that the brazilian commemorative postage stamp, during the XX century, was used, in a certain measure, to establish and enforce the visibility of personalities, events and catholic practices, as a single speech over other religions. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]