A Peal Before Leaving

THE COLLEGE PUMP A Peal before Leaving Church, to study the cultural significance gay marriage and whose church does not of these bells, to learn how best to ring ordain women? And who would have them, and, said Rapoport, to become part imagined that the same patriarch would of a renaissance of ringing in Russia. share public stages…before massive televi- The Danilov Monastery is the once and sion audiences with Diana Eck? Further- future home of the Lowell bells. Stalin more, who would have imagined that “Your wooden arm you hold outstretched wanted to melt them down. Industrialist when the patriarch called publicly for a to shake with passers-by.” Charles R. Crane, LL.D. ’22, bought them philanthropist to finance the repatriation and gave them to Harvard in 1930. They of the bells, his call would be answered by uestion: “What was I, a go home this summer (see “Bell Swap,” Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian Jew, whose young American student of November-December 2006, page 88). foundation is run by a Russian Muslim?” medicine and electrical engi- “The more deeply I have become in- In Russian ringing traditions, bells neering—and an observant volved in the repatriation project,” said sound rhythmic patterns, not melodies. Q Jew—doing in the frozen bell Rapoport, “the stranger and more mirac- (Although Lowell’s bells can’t ring a chro- tower of a Russian Orthodox monastery ulous it seems to me.…In the 20 years matic scale, Rapoport has discovered over in Moscow on the eve of the New Year?” since communism began to loosen its the years that tunes can be played with Benjamin Isaac Rapoport posed that grip, the Russian Orthodox Church has them, including “Hatikvah,” the Israeli question in a February talk at morning sent a stream of requests asking Harvard national anthem.) Readers may hear them prayers in Memorial Church. to return the bells….Until 2002, all such ring traditionally during a bell festival Answer: Rapoport, A.B.-A.M. ’03, who requests fell on deaf ears. Who would and symposium on June 1 and 2 (see is in his fourth year of the M.D.-Ph.D. pro- have imagined that Diana Eck, a preemi- www.lowell.harvard.edu/Bells/ for de- gram at the Medical School and does re- nent American scholar of religion and tails) hosted by Eck, the master of Lowell, search on the design of brain-implantable also an outspoken supporter of gay and participated in by monks, foundry- electronic devices, is also head ringer of rights—and herself married to a female men, the Yale Russian Chorus, members the Russian bells at Lowell House. During minister in this church—who would have of the Crane family, Vekselberg, and pro- the winter recess, he and three under- imagined that such a figure would mas- ject manager Peter Riley, who will ex- graduate Lowell Klappermeisters went to termind the return of these bells to the plain how, in July, workers will remove a the Danilov Monastery in Moscow, seat of great monastery of the Russian Orthodox bit of the bell tower, take out the old the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox patriarch, who has publicly denounced bells, and hoist in 27 tons of new ones. Valery Anisimov, director of the Vera “Our Russian teachers and col- Foundry in Voronezh, Russia, came leagues know that their traditions to Lowell House in February 2007 will live” with us, said Rapoport. with a team of artisans to make “On returning from Russia, I sent molds (right) of the surface decora- tions and inscriptions on the venera- a recording of our first Lowell ble bells. Back at the foundry, work- House ringings back to Moscow. I ers modeled the new bells in wax, received the following response created clay molds, and poured the bronze. Harvard chose this foundry from the monastery: ‘It is very joy- because it was the only one able to ful news for me the Lowellians make a bell as big as the Bell of like your new (and at the same Mother Earth, the largest of Lowell’s time very old) style. Ben, I also set of 17. On March 30, 2007, the superior of the Danilov Monastery was happy to receive and listen to prayed and the foundry cast the 14- your audio files. My soul sang ton replacement Mother Earth. with the bells!’” primus v 84 May - June 2008 Photograph by Diana Eck.

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