Romanian Music in the Byzantine Tradition at Mount Athos

The importance of the Athonite repositories of theological culture, art and music for humankind in general and specifically for Romania cannot be exaggerated. The libraries of all Athonite monasteries, not only of Prodromos, the Romanian monastery, show an abundance of Romanian-written manuscripts, usually presented by Romanian voivodes or hierarchs over the centuries to those monasteries or, more often yet, written at Athos by Romanian monks. The list is long, and begins with two Gospel lectionaries from 10^th-11^th centuries, anastasimataria, stikheraria, antologia, doxologies, etc. signed, among others by well-known Romanian psaltes, hierarchs and monks, such as Damian the Vatopedian, Filotei sin Agăi Jipei, Anton Pann, Anton Ucenescu, etc. The author issued a preliminary catalogue of such Romanian-Athonite manuscripts, which was published and awarded a prize in 2000 by the Composers Union of Romania. A large-scale cultural action of national and world importance will be necessary to research, discover, record, and catalogue the Romanian manuscripts to be found at Athos.

Sebastian Barbu-Bucur