Richard Frank Stika

RICHARD FRANK STIKA

Born: July 4, 1957
Deceased:

Bishop of Knoxville, 2009-Present

Official blazon
English	blazon wanted

Origin/meaning

As common in US episcopal heraldry, the arms show the arms of the diocese impaled with the personal arms of the bishop.

In the center of the arms of Bishop Stika is a chevron, shaped like an inverted V. The chevron also resembles a carpenter’s square, a traditional emblem of St. Joseph, to whom the bishop has a special devotion. The chevron is divided per pale into sections of red and silver. This coloration alludes to the beams of light that St. Maria Faustina Kowalska saw emanating from the Sacred Heart of Our Lord, who appeared to her in 1931 and spoke of the mystery of his Divine Mercy.

St. Faustina had an image made of this vision of Our Lord, which is inscribed at the bottom with the Polish words Jesu Ufam Tobie (“Jesus, I trust in you”). These words from the image of Divine Mercy form the bishop’s motto, which is written in Latin on the scroll below the shield.

The field is blue and is charged with two symbols in gold, above and below the chevron. These colors traditionally symbolize the Blessed Virgin Mary, and in this context they also allude to the coat of arms of the Archdiocese of Saint Louis, where Bishop Stika was born and which he served as a priest for more than 23 years. The gold cross flory represents St. Louis, King of France thus also refers to the arms of the Archdiocese of St. Louis.

The fish that appears below the chevron is an ancient symbol of the Lord Jesus. As early as the first century AD, Greek-speaking Christians used a simple drawing of a fish-ichthys in Greek-to identify themselves and their houses because the first letters of the Greek words for “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior” form the word ichthys. The fish seen on the shield is a pike, an allusion to the bishop’s family name: the Czech word štika refers to this particular type of fish.

The achievement is completed with the heraldic insignia of a prelate of the rank of bishop.

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Diocese of Knoxville, 2018