Ars Sacra Festival 2024

Description of the Ars Sacra Festival

The Ars Sacra Festival has been organized yearly in the third week of September since 2007. It takes place simultaneously with the European Heritage Days and is associated with the Day of Open Churches and the Ars Sacra Film Festival (the latter since 2016). The objective of this Festival is to reveal the signs of hope from the rich sources of the Jewish-Christian culture. According to the underlying ars poetica, all artistic works are sacral even if their subject is directly not religious, provided that they show up real values, e.g. Beauty, Virtue and Truth. The organizers are committed to demonstrating that artistic works – „Ars Sacra” - can give hope to hopeless and spiritually uncertain people in the globalized world. One of the secrets that the Festival has been successful is that it can access all social strata and all age groups.

The Ars Sacra Festival is unique among the numberless other festivals since

• its programs cover a great many branches (11) of art (music, literature, fine and applied arts, dance, etc.),
• all the programs are open to the public freely,
• it offers a large opportunity for voluntary work.

Every year an invitation to join the Festival, containing the motto of the year, is sent to the potential participants – concert halls, museums, galleries, cultural centers, churches, schools, and individual artists or orchestras, performing groups. Most participants join the Festival with their own programs, besides several outstanding programs with the participation of famous artists are organized centrally. The Festival gives also opportunity to less well-known young artists to introduce themselves. It is endeavoured to initiate dialogue among contemporary young artists and to promote their cooperation.

Famous Hungarian artists, museums and other cultural institutions have already joined the Festival. The opening ceremony takes place yearly in the Hungarian National Museum. The patron of the Festival is usually the wife of the current president of Hungary.

The idea of the Ars Sacra Festival was born in Hungary. Up to now most programs have been organized in this country. Being aware of the importance of the European value of the Festival, however, we endeavour to further enlarge the scope of the participants and venues. Recently there were already programs in German and Polish cities, and in some Eastern European countries. There were many inquiries from other European countries.

Some figures: In 2007, in the starting year, 37 programs took place in one location, the number of visitors amounted to 4000. In 2023 480 events were attended by 80 000 visitors at more than 100 settlements. Among them are small villages practically without other cultural events. Nevertheless they joined the Festival e.g. by introducing the artistic values of their church.

The Festival’s logo – Ars Sacra + figure of a putto – is protected as a trade mark in the European Union since 2017.

European artists or performers having programs in line with the commitment of the Festival are invited to contact the organizers. In case of mutual agreement they can get a licence to use the Ars Sacra logo at their programs. This could be a viable way of enlarging the scope of the Festival.