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The sound of church bells ringing makes you look up in the sky, as if this is where these fine and lovely sounds were coming from. We recently had a chance to visit the place where ‘music of the skies’ is born.

We were accompanied to the bell tower in Holy Trinity Cathedral by Father Spiridon.

And each has its own pattern

A narrow and very steep wooden staircase leads to the sky, you cannot speed up, you have to walk carefully (this staircase is used by the bell ringers at least twice a day). Up and up again and here come the bells. The largest bell is in the centre; aside from it there is another one — a smaller bell, and four other little bells lining up between the white-stone walls of the belfry (their sizes are only relatively small compared to the massive first bell). Father Spiridon explained that all bells can roughly be divided into three groups: big ones are the ‘Good news bells (they announced the blessed, good news of the beginning of divine services), the middle ones are ‘Dozvonnye’, and the small ones are ‘Zazvonnye’. These bells align their voices in one canonical tune.

Before meeting us, Father Spiridon held a wedding ceremony and came to the top of the belfry in order to mark the newlyweds at the moment when they were leaving the cathedral. He clutched the ropes of the small bells’ clappers in his arms, placed his foot on a wooden pedal which was connected to the middle (‘Dozvonny’) bell, and by playing his hands and his foot all together, brought into action this multitone instrument. The whole space around us was instantly filled with polyphony of bells. The city spread out in front of our eyes, the city which from the bird’s eye view seemed so new and so great. And a blue skyline extended beneath, all colours seemed extra bright in a clear sun light of an icy cold day. An amazing view and splendour, and a felling of your soul flying, something you cannot express.

‘Bell ringing can be different. And each time it can have its own purpose. For example, now with a wedding chime we are celebrating joy at the start of a new family. This is a wedding service chime,’ my companion said and carried on ringing.

Those who think that a bell ringer mechanically performs his duties by following certain rules are quite mistaken. Certain rules do exist of course, but nobody holds a bell ringer back from expressing his creativity. And by the example of Father Spiridon, I assure you that a bell ringer is all in one at the same time: a conductor, a performer, a composer, and an improviser.

‘Every bell ringer has a different style; moreover, they never repeat themselves. And every one of them has his own pattern. I can recognise the bell ringer by his sound.’

This job is rare

There are not so many bell ringers; this ‘job’ is rare. You can hardly find an in-house bell-ringer who does solely this. Usually clergymen combine this role with something else, like Father Spiridon. He himself started bell ringing in the Trinity Cathedral in Saratov, after graduating from the seminary (he got his first degree from Saratov Agrarian University). He mastered bell ringing on computer software on his own and then started to practise it, gained experience and skills from those who had already known this art, particularly, from Archbishop Pakhomia. As I learnt afterwards from Father Victor, the doorkeeper, Archbishop Pakhomia had held the duty of obedience as a bell ringer in the compound of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius in Moscow before becoming a rector of the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Saratov. There he started to teach others, including Father Spiridon, who then passed this art further onto others.

‘Even though there is a bell ringing technique and it is successive, meaning that it is not simply taken out of nowhere by a ringing man, nevertheless the toll is a melody of a man, the melody which he is generating,’ Father Victor says. ‘And the bell ringer can bring this melody to perfection.’ As an example, he mentioned bell ringers of the Holy Trinity Cathedral. ‘Despite small peculiarities of our bell tower (author’s note: it needs reconstruction and requires more bells, there are not enough of them), our bells ring amazingly sweet and tuneful!

‘The art guides you’, these were the words of Father Spiridon when we talked about the art of bell ringing.

At the moment, with the revival of our long-standing Orthodox traditions, there is a consecrating rite for a bell ringer. If we put it into a mundane language, this rite can be compared to a job initiation. The rite for bell ringers was adopted in 2012 by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. Now there are bell ringing courses, and even bell ringing departments are getting opened in conservatories. There is one already in Saratov State Conservatory named after Leonid Sobinov.

A birthday week of bell ringers

When Father Spiridon was talking me through the ins and outs of this rare job, I inquired if all comers are allowed into the bell tower and learnt about the so-called birthday week of bell ringers and a story of an unfortunate wreck of bells.

‘Before the revolution, there was a tradition. On the Bright Week, the first week after Easter, anyone could come to the bell tower and ring the bells. And if some appeared to have the skill, a bell ringer could get him into training.’

‘So why unfortunate wreck of bells?’

‘A bell, despite its sizes and weight, is a very delicate instrument and requires care. The slightest touch is enough to make a sound scatter far beyond. Still many think that you have to strike it as hard as you can to make a sound out of it and by doing so they simply destroy the bells. You have to remember that this is an instrument too; you have to know how to play it. It took even me a while to learn how to ring the bells.

He recalled with a smile a day when he got the skin on his hand rubbed away: the moment the sounds finally turned into music for the first time, he kept on ringing and ringing in oblivion… That was an inexpressible feeling:

‘It seems funny to me now! How could I tear my hand up with a rope?…’

This is a voice of Christian God!..

This is what pagans used to say when hearing the toll. The graceful and fine sounds of the bell distract from vanities of the mundane and generate bright and kind feelings. No wonder it is said that the sound of the bell is appealing to the human soul. Father Spiridon explained that the church bell ringing brings a bright and cheerful mood to a faithful soul which seeks peace in God. In a sinful soul it echoes with anxiety and anger, brings fight and dismay. So anyone can check his own soul by listening to the bells ringing.

‘There were cases when a man on the verge of committing suicide, misconduct or crime, changed his mind when hearing the bell toll. These sounds have a huge internal power, a divine force. They resonate in anyone’s soul.’

When we started to speak about the soul healing power of bells, I asked Father Spiridon about his thoughts on bell therapy.

Bell therapy is an old Russian tradition. After the revolution of 1917 it was forgotten. Only in the late 80s – early 90s of the previous century, along with the revival of active church life in Russia, experts started to talk about a beneficial influence of sounds on a human psyche. The present-day medicine came to a conclusion that the bell toll helps to treat a whole range of mental and psychosomatic illnesses.

A Russian centre of bell art together with scientists, medics and highly skilled bell manufacturing craftsmen are ready to open up therapeutic bell towers now.

In 2003, for the first time in Russia, a unique therapy session was held in a cancer treatment clinic of the Arkhangelsk city where church bells were used. A new method of treatment was called a bell therapy. This performance of a bell ringing artist was blessed by Diocesan of Arkhangelsk and Kholmogory, Tikhon.

The Swedish scientists as early as at the beginning of 1970s were the first in the world to discover that the bell sounds contain resonance ultrasonic radiation which can kill disease-causing viruses (particularly, agents of typhoid fever, hepatitis and flue, etc.) in a matter of seconds.

Quite recently a group of Russian researchers led by an academician F.Y. Shipunov, has found that the bells generate energy in ultrasound range and thus kill disease-causing environment.

‘They say that bell ringers don’t catch seasonal diseases?’

‘(Author’s note: Father Spiridon smiled at this question) Frankly, they still do. As for bell treatment or healing, I can say that history knows such cases when pox was treated, or rodents were forced away with bell ringing. The sound was being made until rodents leave. This is yet another sign of Divine Providence, a divine energy for those who has no faith in God. Follow the commandments of Christ, go to church not for bell therapy but for prayers, and you will be healthy and will live long. The soul should be filled with light, it should aspire.’

Russian bells are notable for the richness of their sound and lyricism achieved by various means. History scholars confirm that there were times when tourists from Europe, England, and America arrived to Moscow for Easter to listen to the festive bell ringing. Up to five thousand bells were ringing all together. A famous Russian writer Ivan Shmelev called this bell performance ‘the only symphony in the world’.

Orthodox traditions are being actively revived nowadays and maybe such symphonies of heaven will soon be heard in our pragmatic 21st century.

P.S. When I came back to the editors’ office, the first question I heard from my colleagues was this: ‘Did you ring a bell?’ It’s shameful to say that this thought didn’t even come to my mind. How could I miss this opportunity? Or shall I blame a biting wind and a tough frost instead? It made me sad first, but I pulled myself together. I realised that Easter is coming, a birthday week of bell ringers is ahead…

Natalia ABRAMOVA

From history

In Russia bells emerged almost at the same time when the country adopted Christianity by the decision of St. Vladimir (in the year 988) at the end of 10th century. Apart from bells, willows (wooden planks) and clappers (either iron or copper strips curved in a hoop) were used and have still been used until now in some monasteries. But surprisingly enough, Russia borrowed bells not from Greece, like it did with Orthodox Christianity, but rather from Western Europe. This is proved by the word ‘bell’ itself – a Russian word for it is ‘kolokol’ and it comes from the German word ‘Glocke’. In liturgical language a bell is called a ‘campan’ and stems from the name of the Roman Campania province, where the first bells of copper were founded.