Abstract

During the Communist regime in Romania, the arts were submitted to continuous control through specialized censorship services that focused primarily on the ideological content of the arts. Atheism was accepted as the ideology of the country, and as a result, all religious activities and manifestations were abolished. Despite this reality, religion continued to remain an essential part of the Romanian heritage, and several artists looked for ways to incorporate sacred themes in their art. The two principal ways in which the sacred was incorporated in music was through avoiding religious titles, while the content was sacred and by filtering it through the specific national Romanian Byzantine traditions. As a result, there are notable examples of religious music composed during the Communist regime.