Fighting for the bells

The bells of Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow call parishioners to prayer and sound the time every day, except for Lent. PHOTO: Meital Hershkovitz

Soaring up from Kazan's main pedestrian thoroughfare, its brick-red façade flanked by peddlers hawking Chinese souvenirs, stands the bell-tower of the Church of the Epiphany, one of a handful of Russian Orthodox churches in this mostly Muslim city, the capital of the Russian republic of Tatarstan.

On a recent Sunday in March, the three spires of the tower each have a fresh blanket of snow covering their domes. Russian Orthodox faithful will soon assemble for the day's services - the times posted on the inside door of the church, or perhaps in their kitchens, because the bells of the Church of the Epiphany are not allowed to ring to summon the people to prayer.

In fact, the bells aren't even there. They have been forbidden by the Tatarstan government.

Russian church bells are an integral part of the vast liturgical canon of Russian Orthodoxy. Their sonorous clangs not only serve as a call to prayer but also mark certain parts of the service. Not melodious in their chimes like their Catholic or Protestant siblings but rung by their bronze tongues to create a steady rhythmic pealing, Russian bells provide the musical motif that accompanies a parish's feasts and its funerals.

The bells are so important to the faith that they were the first religious objects destroyed by the Soviet regime when it overtook all of Russia almost 70 years ago. The Soviets did not want any public expressions of faith - no matter what denomination.

Since the fall of Communism, Russian Orthodox parishes across the former Soviet Union have slowly been regaining their churches and bell-towers, as religious freedom replaces religious persecution. But in Kazan, while priests and deacons have been successful in having their churches returned, the bell towers remain a source of controversy.

"The authorities simply don't want churches in the center of the city," said Oleg Sokolov, the bespectacled and bearded archpriest of the Church of the Epiphany, which was closed in 1935 and reopened in 1996, after a five-year fight to have the authorities even recognize the parish's authority. "Even more so, they don't want bell ringing in the city. The culture minister himself has said there will be no bell-ringing in Kazan."

In Sokolov's opinion, the Tatar government is refusing to grant the Church of the Epiphany their bell-tower out of simple ill-will.

"They are minimizing the public expression of Orthodoxy," said Sokolov. "And not only of Orthodox churches but also the Russian spirit of this place."

The Tatar government points to Kazan's Peter and Paul Orthodox Cathedral, its bell tower just a few blocks away from the city's Kremlin, as an example of their willingness to allow Russian Orthodox churches in the city, if not in the city center. The center "does not need yet another church, there are already so many," a spokesperson from the Tatarstan ministry of culture told Keston News Service, a former religious freedom watchdog.

The bell-tower at Church of the Epiphany is now home to a museum in honor of Fyodor Shalyapin, a famous Kazan singer, who was baptized in the church. But despite pleas from the parish to move the museum, letters from Tatarstan's culture ministry repeatedly deny that the tower should belong to the church.

"A museum will serve more people than a bell tower," reads one letter.

"A museum can be elsewhere," retorted Sokolov. "In the Orthodox tradition, nothing other than a church can be in a church."

And in the Orthodox tradition, nothing can substitute for the ringing of the bells - not even the tapes of bells that Sokolov sometimes plays on a tape deck from his office, broadcasting to the community through speakers on the blue roof of the church.

"The electrical replica is not very good because Russians are used to tradition," said Sokolov. "People have a hard time accepting innovation. The service is not really complete without the real thing."

"They don't like it," said Sokolov of the Tatarstan government's reaction to the electronic bells, "but they can't ban it."

The real thing - the ringing of up to 10 bells to call a parish to prayer, announce the arrival of a bishop, sound the time and perform dozens of other church functions, religious and secular - also requires a bell-ringer.

While at the Church of the Epiphany in Kazan, Sokolov is the de-facto bell ringer by virtue of the tape-deck in his office, in Moscow, and in hundreds of other Russian cities, hundreds of young men and women are resurrecting the art of bell-ringing.

"The art of bell ringing, to a great extent, had been lost during the 70 years of Soviet power," said Victor Sharikov, the director of the Moscow Bell Center, one of Moscow's two institutions that train professional bell ringers. "There were no old bell ringers around to pass on the art."

Housed in a specially built belfry in the Church of St. Nicolas Zayaitsky, a lettuce green cathedral on the banks of the Moscow River, the Bell Center opened in 1995, with the goal of training professional bell-ringers.

Prior to the opening of the Center, most bell ringers learned their art as apprentices to other bell ringers, if they learned any technique at all.

Viktor Andropov, 23, a student from Kiev, Ukraine, learned how to ring the bells in his church from the parish priest when he was 12 years old. Every Sunday and most feast days since, he has climbed his church's bell fry to sound the call. On a recent visit to Moscow, he stopped by the Bell Center hoping to learn some tips, with the goal of eventually opening his own school.

Every three months, the Bell Center accepts 25 students for basic training in the history, theory and practice of bell ringing. Prior musical experience is not necessary - just a willingness to serve one's church. Candidates for training must be endorsed by their church, however, although the parishes rarely cover the cost of attending the school - 2100 roubles for 3 months.

"It is more important to us that a person has a sense of rhythm than a perfect ear," said Sharikov, who is a former air and space engineer.

"It is the structure of the sound that you have to learn," said Igor Gnadevich, one of nine bell ringers at Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral. Gnadevich embraced Russian Orthodoxy in 1983 and entered Christ the Savior's bell ringer training program in the early 1990s. He left his job as an engineer to serve his church. The lanky and bearded Muscovite, who walks with a slight hunch, has the privilege of ringing the Cathedral's biggest bell - 30 tons of bronze - over the days of Lent, some of the most holy days in the Russian Orthodox faith. Gnadevich, like most of his bell ringing brethren, views his post in the belfry as much more than a job.

"It is a time for prayer and contemplation," said Gnadevich. "It is a religious experience."

While Gnadevich is a full time bell ringer, most are volunteers who get paid nothing at all for their time in the bell fry. They ring out of a sense of religious obligation, a desire to serve and be part of their church.

"I want to give people all around heavenly energy," said Andropov. "I want to make them feel a connection with heaven and with god."

Sokolov remains hopeful that the bells will be returned in time for Kazan's millennial celebrations in 2005, In the meantime, for the Russian Orthodox faithful of Kazan, their musical connection with God will continue to come via Sony.

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