This study aims to draw attention to an episode on the way of the prodigal son returning to the Father, that is identical to the evolution of the Romanian sacred art: born in a time when the Byzantine art was a model in the Orthodox context, fulfilled in the following centuries, it suddenly left tradition under pressure from diverse Western influences. Studying minutes of meeting of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church between 1889 and 1898 has exposed an attempt to return and retrieve lost iconographic traditions as well as the difficulties of this dream that was not to be fulfilled until much later. The nineteenth century passed under the authority of the painters Gheorghe Tattarescu and Nicolae Grigorescu in matters of religious painting; however, at the end of the century, the Holy Synod members found religious painting remote from the Byzantine pictorial tradition and demanded a return to origins. At the meeting in 22^nd of November 1889 they issued a Deciziune a Sântului Sinod al sântei nóstre biserici autocefale drept măritore de rěsărit privitore la icónele, arhitectura, pictura şi ornamentaţiunea bisericilor din tótă ţara, cum să se urmeze pe viitor (Decision of the Holy Synod of our autocephalous and holy eastern Church, regarding the religious icons, the architecture, the painting and the adornments of churches all over the country, and their future), followed by the Draft Regulation for church painting, created during the meeting in 18^th of May 1898, that stated a return to the old Byzantine style. Unfortunately, at that time, painters were unable to respond to the desires of the members in the Synod. These desires would be fulfilled with the foundation of the Board for Religious Painting within the Romanian Patriarchate in 1958, when the operational rules of the board were first drafted, based on the right of the Holy Synod to initiate, authorize, supervise, control and preserve dogmatic, moral and artistic unity within the Romanian Patriarchate, of both holy icons necessary to the cult and religious art works.

Keywords:

"zugrav de subţire" (art painter), "decisiunile Sinodelor" (decisions of the Synods), Byzantine style, "tradiţiune" (tradition), "şcolă bisantină" (Byzantine school)

MIHAELA PALADE