Московский синодальный хор

“Beauty will save the world”. Pope Francis quoted this famous line from one of the most celebrated thinkers of the 1800s in Russia, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, to emphasize to the Moscow Synodal Choir of the Orthodox Patriarchate that “music, painting, sculpture, architecture is simply the beauty that unites us to grow in the faith which is celebrated, in prophetic hope and in witnessed charity”. These words came from a message written by the Pontiff for the concert given by the Moscow Synodal Choir, conducted by Aleksej Puzakov in the Papal Basilica of St Mary Major on Sunday evening, 3 November. The Synodal Choir was accompanied by the Sistine Chapel Choir conducted by Msgr Massimo Palombella.

The Moscow Synodal Choir gave a concert on November 23 2011 at the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The choir is conducted by Russia’s Honoured Artist A. Puzakov. The theme of the concert was “Russian church music through five centuries”. They sang both hymns of the Byzantine plain chant and modern choral music, including works composed by Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev).