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Ormoz (Municipality, Slovenia)

by Zeljko Heimer

Description of the flag
Coat of arms
Former coat of arms

See also:

Description of the flag

The Radio Tednik website has an article about the adoption of the new municipal smybols. I translate it in full [my comments in brackets].

ORMOZ / THE NEW MUNICIPAL COAT-OF-ARMS AND FLAG.
The golden grape and corn ears in the coat of arms.

'The new municipal coat of arms and the flag are smiling towards the Municipality of Ormoz. The proposals are exhibited in the first floor of the Ormoz castle, in front of the session room of the municipal assembly. The proposals were prepared by the heraldical, genealogical and vexillological society Heraldica Slovenica from Ljubljana under expert leadership by Valt Jurecic.

The heraldry has interchanged sides, left is right and right is left. The heraldists would say that in the Ormoz proposal the sun is in the right side of the tower and the moon on its left. That is so because they look at the coat of arms as a person, standing in front of them in mirrored image. [This is very badly described heraldic principle of dexter and sinister, of course.]
Since Ormoz is a historical city with a rich culture, the base for the muniicpal coat of arms was taken from the age old civic coat of arms. Valt Jurecic told us that heraldry is a very precise science with quite strict requirements - the heraldic law. The coat of arms of the city and that of the municipality cannot be the same, since it goes about two legal persons, two different entities, though with much in common. So, the two coat of arms may be similar. The coat of arms of the municipality is therefore based on the coat of arms of its historical city, but with added symbolic. In the example of Ormoz, the identity is in the silver tower in blue shield, between a sun right and a moon left of it. In the lower green part there are added two golden corn ears and a grape, as symbols of a general everyday life of the countryside.
Based on the coat of arms were prepared several designs of flag. The international association of the vexillologic societies [FIAV, I guess] has very strict rules and hierarchy of flags. [First time I hear that. This just can't be true!] The state flag, the flag of municipality, city and finally that of the local council must be different and there are special rules for each group. [while first part is true, I am not aware of any FIAV rules regarding the division level]. For the municipal flag, for example, it is said that it should not include the image of the coat of arms, while that it not so for the national flag [???]. Similarly, it should not use more then two colours [???]. For the flag of Ormoz are chosen white and blue. Since the attributes - the charges from the coat of arms, the tower, the sun and the moon are in the blue field, while the ears and grape in green one, the experts came to a problem. Namely, the third, green colour on the flag is not allowed. Therefore they decided to break some vexillologic standards for the first time in the new Slovenian vexillology, and to combine the attributes from two fields of different colours into one field. The golden ears with the grape are taken from the green field and set into blue, of course, only on the flag.

The coat of arms and the flag of the municipality were designed after an expert study and many thoughts of the Heraldica Slovenica society members. Even on pictorial level they are very nice. Valt Jurecic told us that in year 1996 there was adopted the Law on heraldic, vexillologic and sigillographic register of Slovenia, to be lead by the State Archive of Slovenia.When the Minister for Culture appoints the commission to collect the coats of arms and the flags into the register, to evaluate and approve them, it shall happen that not all of them shall be confirmed. There exists quite a number of such, some prepared by the municipalities themselves without the experts. Such coats of arms shall need to be expertly redesigned or heraldically expertly improved, so that they shall be inscribed into the register. We are missing the roof law that would determine the rules of the game, but these are already known in Central Europe, and we shall have to follow them.

The coat of arms and the flag of Ormoz shall be legally prescribed with the decision on symbols identity by the assembly. Until then one of the proposals for the coat of arms and the flag shall be chosen.'

[signed] Majda Fridl

Zeljko Heimer, 29 April 2000

In the meantime the symbols were adopted in exactly the same design. The symbols were designed by Valt Jurecic of Heraldika d.o.o. and Heraldica Slovenica, who kindly provided drawings from which the images shown on this page were made.

The flag of Ormuz is of a design characteristic of the Slovenian municipal flags. An cross of unusual shape is made of a combination of an horizontal division in three stripes and a vertical division in three unequal stripes, which is often known as Canadian pale. Therefore, the flag has four rectangles, one in each corner, while the main field forms an unusual wide cross.

The flag of Ormoz has such a blue cross on a white field, with the tower, grape and ears from the coat of arms as central attribute.

Zeljko Heimer, 14 Septmeber 2002

Coat of arms

by Zeljko Heimer

The coat of arms of the municipality is based on the traditional coat of arms of the town of Ormoz, adding to it golden grape and corn ears.

Zeljko Heimer, 14 Septmeber 2002

Former coat of arms

by Zeljko Heimer

Neither the flag nor coat of arms of Ormoz are mentioned in Banderas municipales de Eslovenia, published in Banderas [ban] #58 (March 1996), but Ormoz has been using a coat of arms for quite some time, probably based on some early seal. Such a coat of arms has been used at least since the 1980s, but probably before, too. It can be seen here, among other places on the Internet. However, it seems that this civic coat of arms was not officially adopted by the municipality. No flag to go with this coat of arms was reported.

Zeljko Heimer, 29 April 2000