Children’s choir performs controversial song in Romania’s new National Cathedral

A song with lyrics by Radu Gyr, an interwar poet connected to the far-right and antisemitic Legionary Movement, was performed on October 30 by the “Tronos Junior” Choir in Romania’s new National Cathedral. The incident led to numerous reactions and condemnations, but was rejected by the Church.

The controversial event took place on the Day of the Military Clergy, celebrated at the National Cathedral through a Te Deum [a Christian hymn] officiated by Patriarchal Vicar Bishop Varlaam of Ploiești. The event was attended by the defense minister, members of the Romanian Royal Family, the chief of the General Staff, and all military priests, according to Digi24.

The performance sparked multiple controversies because the lyrics allegedly belong to the legionary poet Radu Gyr, adapted from the poem Avem o țară (We Have a Country).

Among those who reacted was Csoma Botond, a deputy from the Hungarian minority party UDMR.

“In the National Cathedral, between freshly sanctified walls, children sang a poem by Radu Gyr, the poet who was the propagandist of the Legionary Movement, the voice of a fascist ideology that sowed hatred and death,” wrote Csoma Botond on Facebook.

Vasile Bănescu, a member of the National Audiovisual Council, also noted his disappointment.

“The sanitization and justification of a text written by someone who justified the ‘moral purification of the nation’ through an extremist, anti-Semitic, and violent ideology that quickly degenerated into crime, even if the text itself is not explicitly political, remains the last variant of an institutional apologetic strategy,” Bănescu wrote on Facebook.

Finally, Alexandru Florian, director of the “Elie Wiesel” Institute, asked for measures to be taken regarding the incident.

In reply, the Romanian Patriarchate stated that the text performed was wrongly attributed to the poet Radu Gyr, without specifying who the actual author is. The institution argued that the incident represents an attempt to associate the Romanian Orthodox Church with extremist ideologies, although the Romanian Patriarchate has repeatedly expressed its firm separation from any kind of movements that promote hatred and violence, xenophobia, and racism.