Institutions of Religious Music Education in Interwar Romania. Case Study: The Academy of Religious Music in Bucharest

Abstract

In the spring of 1928, Miron – the first Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church – established The Academy of Religious Music in Bucharest, the only academic music institution in Romania, at the time, whose purpose was – from the perspective of its founder, the Patriarch – the rehabilitation of the status of Byzantine music in the Orthodox Church and the establishment of a coherent relationship with Western vocal religious music. The present article investigates the historical, social and cultural context of the establishment of this singular institution of religious music education in Romania, as well as its necessity, objectives and utility. It also explores the benefits it brought to Romanian Orthodox religious music and to the Church, until 1948, when it was disbanded by the Communist regime